“This is how it happened: I got so furious with you, I pulled a Glen and went to get myself two bottles of something terribly strong to knock myself unconscious. Kathleen was there, at the newsagents, and she sort of jumped into my car without my consent, but I was so lethargic, I didn’t even have the strength to kick her out. We got piss-drunk. Well, I did, anyway, and that’s how it happened.”

There are tears clinging to Rory’s lower lashes, and I wish I could kiss them away, but I don’t think we’re there yet. I don’t know if we ever will be. I try to ignore the possibility of never kissing my wife again.

“You slept with my sister, Mal.”

“She…”

I know this will be the first and last time I say this. Not just because Kathleen is dead and I honor her memory, but mainly because I never, ever want Tasmin to know how she was conceived. She doesn’t deserve this horror of a story. I refuse to saddle her with a truth that has nothing to do with her.

“I wasn’t conscious, Rory. I mean, well, not fully. I said no. Several times, I think. But I wasn’t completely there when Tamsin was conceived. This marriage I dangled in your face…it was a sham. A lie. Kiki knew it, too.”

The tears fall from Rory’s cheeks to her feet, and she is quivering like a leaf dancing on the ground in fall.

I continue, undeterred, “I’m not going to lie, though. Kathleen reminded me of you, and at that time, I was under the impression you were something I would never be able to have. So I settled for the closest thing. Her. I’m not proud of what I did or how I did it.”

”Rory, Rory, Rory,” I remember chanting every time I was inside Kiki. Like an unanswered prayer. A requiem for a broken heart.

“When we found out she was pregnant, I was pressured by everyone we knew to tie the knot. She’d been a virgin before, and our families would have killed us. And, frankly, I stopped trying. I thought maybe becoming a father would distract me from you.”

“Did it?” She’s sobbing openly now.

I want to wrap my arms around her and tell her to let it all out. Yet, I’m rooted to the road’s shoulder, waiting for her to come to me just once in this lifetime.

I’m tired of doing the chasing. I’m tired of losing just so she can win. I’m exhausted from plotting how to court her, how to have her, how to ruin her, how to keep her, while she keeps fighting it.