“When I was home he would call to say hello—not to check on me; please, please don’t get that idea—and once or twice a week we would meet for lunch. He was not a publicly demonstrative man, holding my hand or breathing on me in the way some men do with their women. He saved it all for when we were alone. There were times when he surprised me with little presents. We were never separated overnight—never more than ten hours. We were so close and constantly in touch with each other—I don’t know, among our friends, there are women and men who don’t seem to relate at all. There’s one woman whose husband doesn’t get excited until after he falls asleep. Then he wakes her. She hates him for it, because it wrecks her sleep! She wanted to get even with him; she was looking for someone to put her up for one night, to punish him. I never mentioned it to Colin, not because he would have said no, which he would, but because it would have upset him. He wakes me up all the time—

“He woke me up, and I was glad to be there. I woke him more than once.” She waved her hand to keep Leland from coming to her aid. “He—he—there’s another couple. They don’t love each other. They just have their social lives in the same living room. They haven’t done it in years.

“I said that he had a lot of girls. He didn’t say anything, as I said, but he would say what he had seen and where he had gone, and there were many, many places and things that he would not have gone to alone. He knew how to handle dating situations, how to pay for things, open doors—oh, let’s face it: he was slick. He knew everything there was to know, and then he invented a couple of things. I’m talking now about his social skills, but you might as well hear it all. We never missed a night. We missed a couple of days because of our nights, sleeping around the clock. He had an appetite, and it was for loving, not going through the motions. Now I’ve had enough. Joe, order me a drink, please. A martini, two to one with a drop of orange bitters. I feel like spitting in somebody’s eye, and it might as well be that damned doctor’s.”

Leland was already motioning to the waiter. He wanted one for himself.

Chapter Six

CHAPTER SIX