He returned. She could see the effects of the alcohol now, not in any carelessness of his movements but in their carefulness. He was in that state just before drunkenness, when the alcohol makes you more aware of your body and what it is touching. She felt that he drank for this moment: not for the dulling but rather for the heightening of his senses. There was something about the way he breathed through his nose, the way his fingertips touched the glass, the way his free hand settled in his lap as he sat back down beside her. Just watching him reminded her of the texture and temperature of things. She could feel the heat of his thigh. And yet his awareness of her had slipped a little. Her attraction to him came on fast and undeniably.

He turned to her sharply, as if she had spoken her desire aloud. He was young now, college age, with thick brown hair and those eyes, those haunted eyes that all the men who’d ever broken her heart had had. “You have more than one?” he asked.

“One what?” She could barely find a breath for the words. When was the last time her groin had throbbed so painfully?

He looked down at Matty, who had managed to put two pieces of a wooden track together for the bright-blue train to sit on. “Distraction.”

“I have a million distractions,” she said, hearing a long-gone flirtation in her laugh, knowing that if he touched her she would not resist. “But only three children.” Usually it gave her pleasure to speak of her children—their ages, their quirks—but now they were obscuring the conversation.

“Tolstoy had thirteen children. And most of them were born while he was writing War and Peace. I’m not sure he even knew any of their names. That’s the way it has to be done. You’ve got to forget your children’s names.”