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does not ask me anything at all. I ask him where he likes to travel, where he has been that he returns to. He tells me. He still asks me nothing at all. Imagining that he might be too shy to inquire about my life, I tell him what comes to mind. He is not paying attention. I stop. He walks me to the subway and tells me what train to take to get home to my house.
    Several concerts, four baseball games later, at my apartment I go to bed with M. Sitting near him, his hand on my shoulder, the leaning in, it happens, without my willing it, or not willing it. I thought it time. I thought I needed to know if the man was there under his clothes, behind the music he listened to, behind the commenta-

    tors’ voices of all the baseball games he had watched and recorded on his TV. I thought the sweetness of him might carry me through. I thought I needed to know that my body can go with another body again. I was glad to go to bed with M. My shape was no longer a wonder to behold. Neither was his. My heart was beating fast, my desires rose. I was able to give and receive. But how strange it is to be in bed with a man who is not H. Am I betraying H.? I had never done so. I had declined invitations to lunch, an opportunity here or there while I was away on speaking trips, a psychoanalyst colleague of H.’s who sent me notes tucked into books he thought I might like. You cannot betray a man who is not living. I tell myself this. I firmly tell myself this. On the other hand you can betray the memory of the touch, the muscle of the legs, the mole in the center of the back, the slightly curved spine, the way the hair curled at the nape of the neck. You can betray the indentation of the man you had been in bed with night after night, good nights, bad nights, dull nights, year in and year out. Perhaps this is why in bed with M. I start to feel like a mannequin, a person who is there in this space but not there. This is not M.’s fault. He is tender. He is sweet. He is strong. I respond, or my body responds as it should. This is good but not good enough. My mind remains outside, above, away. I watch myself do things that seem normal but are not. I do not inhabit my body. Perhaps I need more time and distance. Perhaps I really am betraying H., although he would not think that, or would he think that—and just not tell me? My cat circles around the man, an arch in his back, a sound not entirely friendly coming from his cat throat. M. rests his head on

    the pillow that now belongs to the cat. I reach across M. to run my hand over the cat’s ears.
    There is the idea in my head of the merry widow. I am not merry.

    • • •

    I can’t hang a picture on my own. I can’t open a tightly closed jar. I can’t work the clasp on my pearl necklace. I can’t get it open and if I get it open I can’t get it closed. Or can I?
    I invite M. to the beach for a weekend. He talks politics with my friends. He listens to music. He does not like the sea. He does not want to walk about. His life is interior. The sun gives him a rash. But we are peaceful together. All around are photographs of my children and grandchildren. He doesn’t notice. So I pick up a photo of my two granddaughters and tell him their names. He turns his head away and does not look at the photo. It is true that other people’s grandchildren are superbly uninteresting. They are just children after all and the world has its fill of them. The special charge, the electric joy these pictures give a parent or a grandparent disappears when the eyes are colder, less kind. But most of us are polite enough not to turn our heads away when presented with a photo obviously dear to the presenter. I am feeling lonely in the house with M. I fix dinner. We eat and talk over the editorials of the day, the failings of the newspapers. He tells me stories of legal battles he has fought. He talks of lawyers who are so fabled ordinary people know their names. He does not ask about my work. He has read nothing