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there was no benefit in telling him that now.
    When they walked into the dining room the table was already beautifully appointed. She had warned the staff to keep a low profile. The doctor had told her that it was best to keep things as low-key as possible for Leon while he recovered. It was easy to focus only on the amnesia, which was of course the thing that both of them were most aware of, and forget that he also possessed quite a few physical injuries.
    “They made your favorite,” she said, sitting down in front of the steak and risotto that had been prepared for them. There was red wine at her seat. Water at Leon’s.
    “This seems a bit cruel and unusual,” he said, eyeing her drink.
    “I don’t need to drink it.”
    “And that,” he said, his tone hard, “seems remarkably wasteful. You can drink wine. I cannot. One of us should.”
    “Awfully giving of you.”
    “I feel that I am generous.”
    She couldn’t help herself. She laughed. “Do you?” She lifted her wine to her lips and took a sip, suddenly grateful for the extra fortification that it would provide.
    “Yes. Are you contradicting me?”
    “Of course not,” she said, looking down at her dinner. “You give to a great many charities.”
    “There you have it,” he said, picking up his knife and fork. “Incontrovertible evidence that I am in fact generous.”
    “Perhaps,” she said, slicing her steak slowly, “there is more than one type of generosity.”
    His dark eyebrows shot upward. “Is that so?”
    She lifted one shoulder. “Perhaps.”
    “Do not speak in code. That is hardly less strenuous on my brain.”
    “I am not supposed to bombard you. Much less with my opinions. Opinions are not fact. You need facts.”
    “It is your opinion that I am not generous. At least not in every way.”
    She let out a long breath, feeling frustrated with herself. Feeling frustrated with him. With the world. She wanted to get up out of her chair, throw her cloth napkin on the floor and run out onto one of the grand lawns. Then perhaps she might rend her garment for dramatic effect and shout at the unfeeling sky.
    Of course, she would do none of that. She never did.
    Instead, she looked up at him and spoke in an even, moderated tone. “Of course you are.”
    “Now you are placating me.”
    She let out an exasperated sigh. “Are you trying to start a fight?”
    “Don’t be silly. We never fight.”
    “How could you possibly know that?” she asked, a strange sensation settling in the pit of her stomach.
    Of course, he wasn’t wrong. They had never fought. She had done nothing but idolize him for most of her life, and then she had married him. And in the two years since they had gotten married they’d had so little interaction they hadn’t been able to fight. And, frankly, probably wouldn’t have even if she had seen him every day.
    He was indifferent to her, but he’d never been cruel. There had never been enough passion between them for there to be a fight.
    “I just do,” he said.
    “You are so arrogant. Even now.”
    “Stingy and arrogant. That is your opinion of me. How is it that we never fight?”
    “Perhaps because you are not often around,” she said, taking her first bite of steak and making a bit of a show about chewing it so that he would perhaps cease his endless questions.
    * * *
    Leon looked across the table at his wife. He did not know quite how to read the exchange that had just taken place between them. She was irritated with him, that much he was certain of. He wondered how often that was the case. He wondered if this was unusual, if the stress of the situation was simply overtaking her, or if she didn’t usually show him her irritation.
    Or, more troubling, if he didn’t typically notice it.
    She had made several comments now about him frequently being away. She made him sound as though he was an absentee husband at best. Her childhood dream centered around her home being filled with parties. Centered around her