“That’s not the point. It’s not about keeping score. It’s about relieving misery.”

“You can’t just fly off to Spain to redeem yourself from some imagined sin. Spain is not purgatory.”

“It is if you’re living there.”

“Then don’t go,” Irene begged him. “Don’t get in the middle of somebody’s family fight. You know how it is in families. Everybody’s desperate for the high moral ground, and they’ll all fight dirty to get there. Try to get in the middle of that and you’ll end up dead.”

“And I thought you were an idealist.”

“And I thought you weren’t.”

“If I’m going to die in an airplane,” Sam said, “I don’t want to go down in the middle of some ocean, chasing an empty record.”

They were lying in bed. It was nearly midnight, and they had been arguing about this most of the day. Arguing and making love and arguing some more. The weather was turning chilly at night, so they fought curled around each other, sharing heat equally, skin on skin. Sandy slept on the bed with them, on a vacant pillow or else tucked into the bend of somebody’s knee. Sam was feeling much better; the bruises were already healing. Irene said it was because of the soups she made him, all the strong broth and wholesome food. Sam insisted it was the whiskey and the sex. He lay on his back, because that was more comfortable for his left leg in its plaster cast, and Irene lay on her side with her arm across his chest. Now she propped herself up and looked down at his face in the moonlight—the moon was waxing now, nearly full—and her heart ached because this was how he’d looked on the beach at Howland. So she did what she couldn’t do then, and straddled him. Sandy startled and leapt to the extreme end of the bed. Sam put his hands on her hips and grinned up at her, as if he hadn’t just spoken about getting shot down over Spain in his airplane.

“Promise me something,” she said.

“Name it.”

“Promise me you won’t die in an airplane.”

“I won’t die in an airplane.”

“Promise me.”

He drew her down for a long kiss. “Irene Foster. I swear to God I will die in your loving arms, and nowhere else.”