He went downstairs to the kitchen and got himself a Band-Aid. He was feeling so strange: both disconnected and agitated. His colleague Simon, a recovering alcoholic, had once tried to explain to him what it was like, house-sitting for a friend, to discover a single beer in the fridge. Just like that, your whole life can vanish.

He opened the back door. The sun hung just above the Pacific, an orange bleb, heavy, ready to fall. A week ago, as he was delivering a lecture, a familiar face had resolved from the audience: Rachel. That night he could speak to her only briefly: She practiced psychiatry in Geneva, was married to a banker, had no children. She looked impossibly young, her hair as lush as it had ever been, the impatience and anger that used to overmaster her now completely integrated into her glamor, like a Doberman in a diamond collar. He stole time from his hectic schedule to see her for coffee, lunch, and then for dinner two days before he was to leave. After the meal, they took a walk and ended up at the Embankment looking out over the Thames. She was quiet, causing him to babble. Finally, she took up his hand and made her offer. She could meet him anywhere in Europe, where he traveled at least five times a year. She had no desire to leave her husband, nor did she wish him to leave his wife. She gave him her card. They arranged to meet for dinner the next day, and before getting into the taxi she kissed him, chastely, as a schoolgirl might kiss the envelope of a love letter before sending it.

Unable to sleep that night, he changed his flight to the next morning, leaving a message at Rachel’s hotel that one of his daughters had been injured playing sports at school. He couldn’t help adding that he would be in touch soon. Though certainly it was good of him to leave, he knew that if he had been truly good, he would have said immediately that it was impossible. He loved his wife.

He loved his wife. And yet, on the flight home he struggled with that part of him that wanted to enact, not imagine, a new story, wanted perhaps to be ruined. He had left early to prevent that final date and what might have happened, but he had not said what he should have said: I love my wife.