Now, as she lies in bed at a chaste distance from Nirav, she has an urge to place a pillow between them, although hopes she won’t have to. If the wine has done its job, he will be more sleepy than amorous.

The shallowness of his breath tells her that he is still awake, but it won’t be much longer. She envies this about him, the way he sleeps like a child unfettered by worry. She wishes she could breathe in this magic like a lavender-filled pillow and drift away. She can’t remember the last time she dipped effortlessly into sleep, nor the last time she closed her eyes without fearing the screech of her nightmares, nor the last time she was able to fall asleep without her laptop open, which is the only thing that seems to drown out her horrors, and stop them from shrieking in the night.

Nirav’s lascivious grip around her waist jerks her away from her thoughts. She stiffens from crown to toe. A woman knows when she is being touched with expectation.

Pressing his weight against her, he kisses along her jutting collarbone and the taut muscle that bulges from her neck.

“I missed you,” he whispers.

“I’m sorry,” she says, turning her head to one side. “I can’t right now.”

Ignoring her, he continues to kiss his way up her cheek, across her eyes, down her other cheek, landing at last on her lips. He probes her mouth with his urgent tongue.

The thinking side of her says: A good wife pays attention to her husband’s needs. A good wife puts her husband’s needs before her own. A good wife compromises.

The feeling side of her shrinks away from his needy touch.

With effort, she frees herself from his deep kiss. “I don’t feel well, I’m sorry.”

He nuzzles her ear. “It might make you feel better.”

Her body is too rigid to even flinch. “Nirav, I can’t,” she tells him, pleadingly.

He stops. “All right,” he sighs, making no effort to mask his disappointment, as he rolls onto his side, his back like a barricade beside her, cold as moonlit stone.

Too rattled to move, she stares into the black nothingness in front of her, and breathes shallow breaths.

Anchor pulls her into the mattress.

You should feel lucky he still wants you, it says.

Yes, it seems that Anchor is right again. She wonders how long it will be before Nirav leaves her or has an affair. Maybe that would be for the best. Maybe he would be better off without her, happier with someone undamaged. He is young, he can start over, in a way that she knows she will never be able to. It isn’t right to keep him from finding the happy life she knows she can’t offer him anymore.