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younger,” she said. “It really wouldn’t matter. But the way things are now … I’m almost forty, and I can’t see myself …”
    She faltered and a tear rolled down her cheek. Bob started to move toward her but she put up her hands, palms out, and shook her head.
    “No, stay there,” she said. “I can’t trust myself to be honest if you hold me.”
    “All right,” Bob said, feeling his arms trembling. “But tell me. Now.”
    “Okay,” Jesse said. She wiped away her tears and began.
    “I heard … I heard around town … God, this is so hard for me, I just hate confronting people …”
    “It’s all right,” Bob said, falling back on his professional manner. “We have to be honest with each other.”
    “Okay, then,” she said. “I heard from a lot of people that you … you lost all your money playing cards with Ray Wade and some other guys. That your practice had fallen off and that you’re in a lot of trouble financially … and Bobby, I know you’ll think I’m a gold digger, but I can’t put myself through that kind of pressure again. ‘Cause I know what it will do to you. And to me. Nothing good can come out of being poor.”
    Bob was stunned. He sat back in his chair in a self-consciously slow way so as not to fall backward. People had told her that he was a loser. He wanted to scream out, “Who? Who said it? I’ll find the sons of bitches and kick their asses.”
    But what would that accomplish? He had to suspend his anger and dismay at the public humiliation he’d suffered (though it was hard … Christ, everyone knew … everyone knew he was broke, oh Jesus, the humiliation of it), and deal with the situation at hand.
    He smiled, a big generous smile, and looked across the room.
    “That’s the problem with rumors,” he said. “They’re usually based on half truths. Here’s the real story. Yes, when my wife left me I did go through a wild period where I lost quite a bit of money gambling. I think, honestly, that it was my own way of paying for my sins. I’d been careless with Meredith’s love. I’d grown to take her for granted. I didn’t listen when she told me that she was lonely, that she needed contact with me … and when she left me for Rudy Runyon I was devastated. I went through a period of real self-hatred. How could I have become such an uncaring and unfeeling person? I felt that I had to pay somehow for screwing up, so I played cards and I lost. Quite a bit of money, I admit. But nowhere near all of it. Fortunately, my mother and father left me a good-size inheritance. That part of my savings was never touched. So, you can tell your friends at the Lodge, or whoever they are, that they’re dead wrong about my financial situation.”
    He looked at her directly and she winced at his words.
    “You’re mad at me,” she said. “I knew you would be.”
    Bob got up from the chair and joined her on the couch. He took her hand and looked into her eyes. The same look he gave his troubled patients.
    “I’m not at all upset that you questioned my financial situation. I don’t think any woman should get involved with a guy who’s broke. It’s a recipe for disaster. What upsets me is you didn’t come to me as soon as you heard all that bullshit.”
    She put her head on his chest and wept.
    “I didn’t feel … like I had the right. I was afraid you’d hate me and never see me again. I’m sorry I doubted you, Bobby. I mean it.”
    Bob put his right hand under her chin and gently lifted it toward his face.
    “Jesse,” he said. “You should know better. I love you.”
    “I love you, too,” she said. “I do. But I can’t stand being broke. I don’t know what I’d do if I had to be poor again.”
    “You don’t have a thing to worry about,” Bob said. “Not one thing.”
    They kissed and Bob was flooded by a warm bath of emotion. God, he was in love, and he was loved back. Could there be anything better than this? No, of course not.
    He slipped his hand under