When they’d met, almost a year after her divorce from Dale, Jane had been comforted and warmed by Thomas’s big, solid presence. He was everything Dale wasn’t, a large lovable man who lavished attention and tenderness on her, a man who didn’t hold back any of his emotions, a man who seemed to have been built for loyalty and fidelity. She’d had enough of fights and fireworks and the kind of overpowering sexual heat that had always been a part of her relationship with Dale. Thomas made love to her, soothed her, and even if, at times, she wished he wasn’t quite so considerate, quite so eager to please, it was a relief to find herself on solid ground. With Dale, she’d always felt like one of those women you see identified as an “unidentified woman” on the arm of a movie star or business mogul. With Thomas, she was Jane Cody again. He’d lived with a woman for almost ten years, but they’d never married, and then she left him for a tenure track position in Oregon and, eventually, another woman. Six months into casually dating Thomas for the peaceful pleasure of it, she found herself pregnant. There was never any question of what they’d do. After one tumultuous marriage, settling down and raising a child struck her as the practical, healthy choice. It didn’t hurt that Thomas had a little inherited money, a cushion, like his big soft body. Marrying him felt like the sensible, adult thing to do. The way buying the house had seemed like a good investment.

But as with the house, she’d begun to think that she might have factored in the wrong criteria when making her decision.

Thomas pecked at her neck and then lapped at her ear, leaving behind a trail of saliva, and all she could think about were the slugs she’d seen crawling along the walk all summer, marking their paths with ribbons of slime. What a way to think of her husband, the only man who’d been good to her, reliable, absolutely and unequivocally without qualification or hesitation.

Love in this marriage, she’d come to realize, was like the weather, coming and going in waves and seasons, blowing in strongly from one direction one moment, the opposite direction a few days later. Sometimes, the conditions were unbearable, like the heat and humidity tonight, sometimes they were so perfect and clear and invigorating, you almost couldn’t believe they were ever anything else. It was a matter of staying calm and waiting. She had to remind herself that her feelings would change and that one day, hopefully soon, she’d wake up and a new system would have blown in and all her minor discontents and complaints and petty boredom would be a dim memory.