Irene enjoyed the drive from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific. The clear light, the dry grass – brown, but lit gold in morning and evening; the orchards, row after row of trees planted with such precision that their shadows whisked over our car like the beat of a metronome; the vineyards growing not on hillsides but in valleys; the place names that bore witness to the Spaniards or Russians who once had settled there. Irene imagined the people from the Crimea who had found their way to California and founded Sebastopol, the stoves glowing between the vines on cold nights, the rush of pink when the orchards bloomed in spring. Before we reached the Pacific, we crossed one last mountain range. From its heights we could see the fog that hung in the valleys and over the ocean, a fog so thick that it seemed no sun could dissolve it. It was late morning, and we sat on the brown grass, the dog at our feet, and drank the red wine we had bought at a winery. We felt sleepy, dozed off, and woke up. The fog was gone and the Pacific shimmered in the midday sun.

“I lay still. While we were asleep, you had turned towards me and laid your arm over my chest.”

Irene smiled. “You’re becoming daring.”

“You laid your arm across my chest, not the other way round.”

She laughed. “Understood. And then what?”

“You woke up, left your arm on my chest for a moment longer, then sat up and looked out at the Pacific. I sat up too, and you leant your shoulder against mine.”

“How did you feel with my arm on your chest and my shoulder on yours?”

Why do women always need to hear how you feel? They have to hear it – knowing it isn’t enough. It’s like in the army, where it’s not enough that you serve loyally, you have to face the flag every morning and pledge allegiance. It’s a ritual of submission, one which I refused to surrender to with my wife, and one which she eventually abandoned. At some point, she gave up asking me how I felt.

“Good,” I said, and we drove down to the ocean, and along the coast towards San Francisco. Irene had seen The Birds, and in Bodega, I showed her the schoolhouse from the film. Then we went down to the water, and walked the beach, and I told her about the waves that suddenly, out of calm water, can rear up and snatch anyone walking too close and not give them back.

Suddenly, I was afraid for her. She had no choice. She was walking on the edge, and at some point the cancer would take hold of her and not let go.