As she spoke, he reached into the crib hesitantly and picked up the tiny, blanket-swaddled shape, holding it almost at arm’s length in a parody of the unpracticed new father faced with a wet diaper. Still with that expression of confused emotion, he handed it over to a nursemaid with unseemly speed, and while crib, maid, and child receded in their own fading circle of light, he strode forward in a blaze of spotlights and trumpets to grip his wife by the arm and yank her back to center stage.

Their argument unfolded as a tango, a violent push and pull with each demanding control.

“It did not suffice,” she cried out over the quarreling music. “He became cruel, accusing me of lies, questioning my loyalty. Then, most terrifying of all, he grew silent.”

She spun away from him, spurned by a flick and release of his hand. He walked away in quiet, suppressed fury, returned to his desk, and sat behind it like a man finding a fortress and determined to stay there. His face slowly relaxed and became calm; he took up the papers before him and began to read.

“In the end, he found my greatest weakness. I could endure his possessiveness, his controlling manner, and even his hatred, but I could not abide his indifference.”

The room went dark, and the music hushed; then the lone clarinet once more began to lament. A pool of muted light formed and widened around a solitary figure holding a small child covered and close in her arms.

“I left,” she stated. “I left him, I left my home, and I made myself a new one. I left to find another stage, another play, another role in which I could direct myself again. It is never too late to start again.”

She walked offstage as the well-known silhouette of the City’s towers and town houses slowly appeared on the curtains behind her and the trumpets sounded a last soft farewell.

“The end,” whispered a familiar voice in his ear.

Chance turned. “Galina,” he murmured.

She was seated beside him as if she had been part of the audience all along. To some, she would be barely recognizable as the woman who had been on the stage. Her face and attire were devoid of glamour and her voice stripped of drama. To one with some experience in the art of crafting shadows, she was easy to identify. Frankly, he preferred her this way. She still sat with poise, but her body curved a little, released from the severe mastery of the performer’s will. Her mouth was softer and her eyes more vulnerable. She was human.

“My latest work,” she explained with a self-deprecating smile. “It needs a little refining, but I think I’ve pulled together the best elements. Don’t you agree?”