Besides, she was grateful for his presence, for the freshly laundered smell of his shirts, for the domestic aura which clung to him and from which she drew illicit sustenance, for the authority of his medical knowledge, for his humor, quick and sardonic, for his sexual diffidence, which while it sometimes made her laugh to herself—he always covered his nakedness when the lights were on, grabbing up a towel, a blanket, once a sweater she’d left lying in a chair—made her feel less responsible. But she was most indebted to him for those very things that—if she’d imagined such an affair, such a long one as this, several years ago—she could not have conceived then would become central to it. He sent her to a good dentist. Outraged yet amused, he tore into her eating habits with grisly explanations of what she was doing to herself with her impulsive and irregular snacks. Because of him, she had begun to cook. He kept her drinking down. He brought her a good reading lamp. He stuffed her with fresh fruits from the Farmers’ Market and demanded, with uncharacteristic aggressiveness, that she drink milk and eat vegetables.

He made her vegetable soup. “Do you like it?” “It’s good,” she admitted. “But it’s boring to eat soup.” “Boring?” he’d asked. “Like peeing.” He laughed. “You eat like a ragamuffin.”