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I just wasn’t ready for it.”
    â€œI know,” she replied calmly. “I knew all that before you and I slept together that night, so you don’t have to plead your case with me.”
    â€œAll right, then you plead yours with me. Tell me why you went to bed with me ?”
    â€œWho knows?” She wandered away from him to stand looking out the open French doors, her arms crossed defensively beneath her breasts. “Temporary insanity. The opportunity was there. I was never what you’d call an armpiece, so I hadn’t had a lot of attention from men. You were a good-looking guy I’d talked to at a couple of parties, enjoyed a few laughs with . . . and then I delivered those pizzas to that hotel suite and there you were with all your crazy friends . . . I don’t know. Why does anybody do anything?”
    He sat on the stack of boxes regretting that night afresh.
    â€œIt bothered my conscience for a long time after I got married . . . what I’d done with you.”
    Over her shoulder, she looked back at him. “But you never told her?”
    He took some time gnashing through more present guilt before giving a hoarse reply. “N . . .” He cleared his throat. “No.”
    Their gazes held, hers passive, his troubled.
    â€œAnd the marriage—did it last?”
    He nodded slowly. “Eighteen years, every one of them a little better than the last. I love her very much.”
    â€œAnd the baby she was expecting?”
    â€œRobby. He’s a senior at HHH.”
    The full implications registered on her face before she breathed quietly, “Oh, boy.”
    â€œYeah. Oh, boy.” Tom rose from the boxes and wandered to another spot in the room. “The two of them are out on the football field together right now. And Claire . . . well, Claire teaches twelfth-grade honors English, for which, it seems, your son—ah, our son—has registered.”
    â€œOh, boy,” Monica repeated. Her crossed arms actually loosened slightly for the first time.
    â€œClaire and I have a daughter, too. Chelsea. She’s a junior. Our family is very happy.” He paused a beat, then said, “Your registration card doesn’t list a husband’s name, so I take it you’re single.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œNever been married?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œSo who does Kent think his father is?”
    â€œI told him the truth, that you were someone I met at a party one night and had a brief affair with, but that you wereno one I ever considered marrying. I made a good life for him, Tom. I got my degree and provided a solid home with all the support a child could ask for.”
    â€œI can see that.”
    â€œI didn’t need a man. I didn’t want one.”
    â€œI’m sorry if I did that to you, made you bitter.”
    â€œI’m not bitter.”
    â€œYou sound bitter. You act bitter.”
    â€œKeep your speculations to yourself,” she snapped. “You don’t know me. You don’t know anything about me. I’m an achiever, and that’s always been enough for me. That and Kent. I work hard at my job and at being a good mother, and the two of us have gotten along very well.”
    â€œI’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound critical, and believe me, in my occupation I’d be the last one to criticize any single parent who’s single by choice, not when she’s raised the kind of kid you’ve raised. I see so many dysfunctional families where the parents stay together for the kids’ sake. Those kids are in and out of my office every day, and the counselors and police and I are always trying to straighten them out . . . mostly without success. If I sounded as though I thought you haven’t done a good job, I didn’t mean to. He’s . . .” Tom ran a hand over the side of his neck, stirred anew by the little he