“Damn it, Bobo, we’re not too old,” she said desperately. She began to pace the room. “We’re fifty-five. What are we supposed to do—live another thirty years like we are now? Do you want to do that? Do you want to live another thirty years like this, accepting what we are because that’s what’s expected of us? Thirty years, Bobo. Think of it. I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to spend my time going to proper little parties and serving on committees for black-tie dinners that are supposed to be charity events for the homeless, but are nothing more than excuses to parade around comparing designer gowns.” She laughed sadly. “I don’t want to stay awake at night making retirement plans and worrying about wills and burial plots. Damn it, Bobo, I want to live. I want us to live. I want us to make love like teenagers. I want to go to Paris with you. I want to sit and watch you paint. I want to lie beside you in bed and hold your hand. I want to feel you, Bobo. So many good years. Why can’t we have that time?”

I saw her tremble. She moved back to me and took my hands and urged me up from the bed and she held to me.

“Will you think about it?” she begged against my chest. “Will you promise that much?”

“Yes,” I said.

“I don’t want to hurt anyone, Bobo, and I know we would. We would hurt Peter and Carolyn and our children and our friends, but I don’t want to live the rest of my life wondering what might have been, and wanting what I didn’t have. I’ve spent too many years wondering that.”

She pulled her face from my chest and looked at me. She closed her eyes slowly, and when she opened them again, the expression on her face had changed. She was calm, resolved.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “You can’t do it, can you?” She touched my face with her hand. “No, you can’t, and it’s wrong of me to ask you. But I understand, Bobo. I do. This morning, I couldn’t have done it, either, no matter what I said. I can now, and I don’t know why. It’s not Peter being here, and it’s not knowing about my mother. It’s just something I know I could do, something I want to do.”

She kissed me gently.

“Avrum didn’t mean to lie,” she added. “He wanted to tell the truth, but he couldn’t do the truth. I’m not angry with him for that, and I’m not angry at you, or at us. If we can’t do the truth, at least we know it.”