I didn’t realize it at that time, but I think the ducks were somehow connected to what had happened with our son. Hadley was not vegetarian and so her malice always seemed without logic.

For a while we just lay there on the feather duvet, bodies touching. Seagulls flashing at the window. I wonder if, in her mind, Hadley was going over her own flight from the city that evening.

Then we got under the covers.

Hadley took off her clothes and dropped each item by the side of the bed. I did the same. I remember seeing her glossy bra and panties on the floor and feeling sad again. I didn’t know what sex would be like once she knew, and so I tried to rejoin the moment.

There would soon come a time⁠—as early as twelve months⁠—when I wouldn’t be able to do anything like this. I imagined we would just cuddle then. She would probably cry, and then later, alone in our apartment, she might lay on the bed, and through the thin fabric of her underwear, pleasure herself with the memory of pleasure.

When dusk filled the corners of our home, Hadley went downstairs to eat something, even though we would be sitting in the restaurant within an hour. It was a peculiar habit of hers that used to irritate me. But lying there with the warm imprint of her body in the sheets, I laughed at how ridiculous everything was, and how annoying habits are as precious as anything else, if not more.

Half an hour later I was shaving when Hadley appeared in the doorway wearing a green dress, black stockings, and patent-leather shoes.

“What do you think, Max?”

“Very nice indeed.”

“Oh, you always say that. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Okay then,” I said, taking in as much as I could. “You look like Maid Marian as a hooker who won the lottery.”

She laughed, and I was glad because it would have been so easy for her to say something cruel that later, when I was gone, would become a source of torment.

It was dark when we left the house to go have dinner. A southeasterly wind was howling off the sea. We could taste the salt. I opened the passenger door for my wife and watched her get in. The way she adjusted her tights was a stark reminder of not only what I was losing, but how much I had been given⁠—and that I should be more grateful than bitter, not only for what had happened, but for all the things that hadn’t happened.