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to be talking about it, and partly ashamed. “It’s just that Laura has decided, as I’m sure you know. And I didn’t know. I was with Laura this afternoon. I miss her and I don’t understand how I can want her to come home so much and be so afraid of what’s happening to her. I wanted to carry her back here by force and I wanted to flee.”
    “You really don’t understand?” Felix asked. His dark eyes were filledwith a protective concern. “It’s easy enough for me to understand,” he said. “And you mustn’t condemn yourself for it, not at all.”
    “You’re always kind, Felix, always kind,” Reuben said, “and there are so many questions on the tip of my tongue about who you are and what you know.…”
    “I realize that,” said Felix. “But in a very real way, who we are now is what counts. Listen, I’ve loved you as if you were a son to me from the first moment I met you. And if I thought it would help to tell you all the stories of my life, I’d do it. But it won’t help at all. This you must live through on your own.”
    “Why am I not happy for her,” Reuben asked, “happy to share this power, these secrets, what’s wrong with me? From the first moment I knew I loved her, I wanted to give her the Chrism. I didn’t even know the name of it. But I knew that if it could be passed, given, and I wanted to …”
    “Of course you did,” said Felix. “But she’s not simply a person in your mind, she’s a lover.” He hesitated. “A woman.” He turned to the small combination lock and, shifting the flashlight under his arm, worked the dial quickly. “You’re possessive of her, you have to be,” Felix went on. He cracked the door but didn’t enter. “And now she’s one of us, and it’s out of your hands.”
    “That’s exactly what she said,” Reuben answered. “And I know I should be happy that it’s out of my hands, that she’s been accepted without conditions, that she’s seen as whole and entire and her own person.…”
    “Yes, of course you should, but she’s your spouse!”
    Reuben didn’t respond. He was seeing Laura again, by the creek, holding that small wooden flute, and then playing it, tentatively, making that melody that rose mournfully, as if it were a little prayer.
    “I know this,” said Felix. “You have an exceptional capacity to love. I’ve seen it, felt it, knew it when we first talked to each other in the lawyer’s office. You love your family. You love Stuart. And you love Laura deeply, and if for any reason you cannot bear to be around her anymore, well, you will deal with it with love.”
    Reuben wasn’t so sure of that, and suddenly the difficulties, the potential for difficulties, overwhelmed him. He thought of Thibault under the tree outside of her house, waiting there so quietly in the darkness, and a raging jealousy took hold of him, jealousy that Thibault had given her the Chrism, jealousy that Thibault, who’d warmed to her from the beginning, might be far closer to her now than Reuben was.…
    “Come,” said Felix. “I want you to see the statues.”
    The flashlight threw a large yellow beam before them as they entered a cold white-tiled room. Even the ceiling was tiled. And at once Reuben’s eyes made out a great cluster of white-marble crèche figures, finely carved, robust, and baroque in proportions and costume, as rich as any Italian statues he had ever seen. Surely these had come from some sixteenth-century palazzo or church across the sea.
    They took his breath away. Felix held the flashlight as Reuben examined them, wiping the dust from the Virgin’s downcast eyes, her cheek. Not even in the famous Villa Borghese had he ever seen anything more plastic or lifelike rendered in stone. The tall figure of the bearded Joseph loomed over him, or was it one of the shepherds? Well, here was the lamb, and the ox, yes, finely detailed, and there suddenly as Felix moved the flashlight were revealed the opulent and splendid Three