“No one big reason. She just didn’t want to be married anymore. What about you and Chapin?”

“He did want to be married. Only not to me.”

Again the silence stretched between us as we passed through Cotton Grove, along Possum Creek, and onto the road past the farm. The moon flicked in and out of the thick trees.

“Okay,” I said at last.

“Really?”

I took a deep breath. “Yes.”

“You’re sure?” he persisted.

“Aren’t you?”

“Yeah.”

Dwight turned off the hardtop into the lane that ran up to my house. When we pulled in next to the back porch, he left the motor running and reached across me to open the door so I could hop out as I always did.

“Well,” he said. “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow. Want to—”

I turned off the key in his ignition.

“Hey, what are you doing?”

“Before we make it official,” I said, “we need to find out if we’re really as compatible as you think we are.”

“Huh?”

“Don’t play dumb, Dwight.”

“Oh.”

He doused the truck lights and followed me into the house. The moon followed, too, and we did not turn on any lamps.

After a lifetime of treating Dwight like family, I was afraid that sex with him would feel vaguely incestuous. Instead, once we got past the first awkward kiss, it felt normal.

Okay, better than normal.

All right, dammit! It felt wonderful.

Nevertheless, as the coital glow faded, a wave of sadness washed over me. Lying next to him in the moon-softened darkness of my bedroom, I said, “We’re just settling, aren’t we?”

“Settling?”

“Settling for safe and comfortable because we’re afraid the real thing’s never going to come along?”

“You want an escape clause?” he asked quietly.

“Well, we ought to look at it logically.”

For some reason, that seemed to irritate him. “Oh shit, Deb’rah Knott! You never looked at love logically in your whole damn life.”

“But this isn’t love, is it? I mean, we love each other. We always have. But this isn’t romantic love. This is expedience. And I don’t know why you’re getting so huffy.”

“Well, why wouldn’t I? You no sooner say yes than you’re looking for a way to bust us up. If we do this, I expect it to be for better or worse till death do us part. No more divorces.”

“And what if someone comes along who makes you feel the way you felt when you and Jonna first fell in love?”

“Not going to happen,” he said stubbornly. “And even if it does, I’ll just remind myself where that feeling ended up the last time around.”

His denial of love’s importance made me so much sadder that I couldn’t speak and his head turned on the pillow beside me.

“But if you want an escape clause, if that someone comes along for you... Well, then, I won’t try to make you stay, okay?”