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As I drive us back over the lake and feel his heart beating againstbetween us, the stretching of the years and the passing of time and life we can never have back, and I know there’s one thing I can do to stop it Stay

But I won’t I can’t And I hate that this is who I have to be Worse I hate that this is who I’ve allowed h to surrender

The last I see of hioes up the stairs into the house The heel of his shoe pauses on the last stair, as if he’s going to coue But the shoe disappears into the house and he’s gone and I’ what happened to the life I iined when I first saw him on that beach in my mother’s arms

I wipe my eyes and put the key in my pocket

In the hall upstairs, I still hear Sevro speaking to his girls We were all ether for a month upon our return So irls and walk back out of the house, across the wooded lawn to the landing pads

“Were you going to say goodbye?” a voice says froh of a cypress tree and in the shadows see theuards nowhere to be seen She wears a purple silk jacket with a high collar that’s open to the base of her neck Circles ring her eyes

“I was going to call you from orbit,” I say

“When you were out of my reach”

I hesitate “Yes”

“I see It is the only way to maintain that I was not complicit in your treason Reasonable, I suppose”

I walk toward her and, feeling aard towering over her, sit on the edge of the stone fountain nearby to face her Water bubbles out of the half-broken face of a winged cherub, leaking out his eye and ear through a crack

“It’s not treason,” I say

“Yes, it is Euphe me a mess Dancer will seek my impeachment”

“He needs two-thirds of the vote for that He et the majority for a peace vote, but never an impeachment”

“You think they’ll really believe I didn’t know you were leaving? You’re ” My wife, I’ve often thought, can be two people One is her, full of life and light and aard innuendos and snorting laughter and imperfection The other is the iustus, reat enemies, her brother and her father