Norton rubbed his tired eyes, looked up at the clock over the bookcase. Midnight. Carole had gone to sleep several hours ago, and he should have too, but there’d been that Civil War show and then these tests to grade, and now it was already Thursday. He stood, stretched. He could’ve done what most of his colleagues did and postponed the grading for another day. Or he could have given a scantron test instead of an essay test and let the machine grade them.

But he wasn’t about to sacrifice his principles, to change his teaching habits for the sake of expediency, and though he was bone-tired and would only be able to catch a few hours of sleep, at least he could face himself in the morning.

He walked into the kitchen, put his cup in the dishwasher, then walked down the hallway to the bathroom to take out his bridge.

Carole was dead asleep and snoring when he went into the bedroom, and she did not wake up even when he turned on the light. He took off his clothes, carefully folded them, and placed them on the cedar chest at the foot of the bed, then once again turned off the light. He felt his way through the darkness over to the bed, lifted the covers, and got in.

Carole moaned, stirred, rolled over.

Her body felt warm next to his, almost hot. She often called him a “corpse” because of their difference in body temperatures, and he had to smile when she said that because it wasn’t too far off the mark. He was getting on in years, and a lifetime of soft self-indulgence had probably made his body even more decrepit than it ordinarily would be. He was old and he knew it, and he wouldn’t be surprised when his heart or his liver or one of his other organs started to give out.

Carole was quite a bit younger than he was, forty-five to his sixty-two, and there was something comforting about knowing that he would die first. It was selfish, of course, but he’d always been selfish to a certain extent and the charge didn’t bother him. He wouldn’t have to carry on without her, wouldn’t have to make another seismic shift in his life. It would be hard on her, of course, but she was stronger than he was, she could handle it. Hell, she’d probably remarry.

So why was he such a prick to her?