“Where were you?” he said. “I thought you’d gotten killed.” I looked up into his face. With his old roommate beside him he looked like the boy I had loved such a short time ago. He looked like someone who was valuable and to be desired. He was my husband. Or, at least he used to be. How could anyone as terrible as I was deserve a man this fine? “I’m so sorry,” I said. “I don’t know what came over me. Oh, God, don’t be mad at me. This is May Garth. Her father owns some banks. This is Phinias, May Garth. Phinias Kernodle, our friend.” I dissolved in tears and ran up the stairs to our room. Malcolm followed me, leaving Phinias and May Garth to amuse one another as best they could.

Chapter

20

Nature does not waste such emotion. After we made up, and Phinias and May Garth had left together, Malcolm made love to me and then he fussed at me and I apologized and begged to be forgiven. Then we made love some more and he asked me if I wanted to go to the mountains for the weekend.

We left on Saturday morning. Malcolm and I and Avery and Mary Adair and Charlie McVey and his wife. The six of us in a Chevrolet, all the camping gear stuffed into the trunk of the car. THERE WAS ONLY ONE TENT.

We drove all the way up into the mountains. It was almost dark when we got there. We built a fire and started cooking dinner and then we cut the cards for the tent. Malcolm reached out his hand and plucked the ace of spades from the deck and neither of us had remembered to bring a rubber.

“Where are you going?” he asked. It was morning and I was pulling on my pants and boots.