She paused, seeming to read his thoughts and feelings more clearly than he could. “I’m not trying to turn you into someone you’re not. I just feel that you’d be happier if you could let some brightness, some variety, into your life. It looks to me like you keep rolling the same boulder up the same hill again and again, without any lasting relief or reward at the end. It looks like all you want is to keep pushing, keep struggling, keep putting yourself in danger—the more danger, the better.”

He was about to object to her point about danger, but decided instead to hear her out.

She looked at him, sadness filling her eyes. “It looks like you get so deeply into it, into the darkness, that it blots out the sun. It blots out everything. So I go about my life the only way I know how. I do my work at the clinic. I walk in the woods. I go to my concerts. Art shows. I read. Play my cello. Ride my bike. I take care of the garden and the house and the chickens. In the winter I snowshoe. I visit my friends. But I keep thinking—wishing—that we could be doing more of these things together. That we could be out in the sun together.”

He didn’t know how to respond. At some level he recognized the truth in what she was saying, but no words were attaching themselves to the feeling it generated in him.

“That’s it,” she concluded simply. “That’s what’s on my mind.”

The sadness in her eyes was replaced by a smile—warm, open, hopeful.

It seemed to him that she was totally present—that all of her was right there in front of him, with no obstructions, no evasions, no artifice of any kind. He put down his cup, which he’d been holding without realizing it all the while she was talking, and stepped toward her. He put his arms around her, feeling all her body warm against his.

Still without words, he picked her up in the clichéd manner of new-bride-over-the-threshold—which made her laugh—and carried her into the bedroom, where they made love with an intensely wonderful combination of urgency and tenderness.

Madeleine was up first the next morning.

After Gurney had showered, shaved, and dressed, he found her at the breakfast table with her coffee, a slice of toast with peanut butter, and an open book. Peanut butter was one of her favorite things. He went over and kissed the top of her head.

“Good morning!” she said cheerily through a mouthful of toast. She was dressed for her work at the clinic.

“Full day today?” he asked. “Or half?”

“Dunno.” She swallowed, took a sip of coffee. “Depends on who else is there. What’s on your agenda?”

“Hardwick. Due here at eight-thirty.”

“Oh?”