The day Owen found the album was the day Ada saw the value of secrecy. Its drawbacks she had always known. She led an open life, by habit -- habit she would never be able to break, and didn't want to. But finally she understood the appeal of deception. Owen had discovered the album autographed by Wyatt.

"Un-fucking-believable. You're still in love with him."

"That's preposterous. Don't you know anything about me? That belongs to Sarah's boyfriend. I had Wyatt autograph it."

"You sneaked down there to see him. If you didn't have anything to hide, you would have told me."

They argued for an hour. Owen's became harder and louder, until he was screaming, and she ran to the third floor. She picked up her phone and heard ringing on the line. Owen was calling someone. She was about to hang up when a woman answered.

"Hello?"

"Gina, it's me."

"Hi, baby. I bet I know what you want."

"Are you free?"

"Yes."

"Be naked when I get there. Ten minutes."

Ada watched him leave from the third-floor window. She threw herself into the armchair and stared at the ceiling. So he was having an affair with his secretary. Easy pickings, barely out of high school. If she had brains to match her breasts, she'd win a Nobel. Her bra so big it looked like a harness under those flimsy tight blouses she liked to wear. Should have been an exotic dancer, not a secretary. For a moment Ada had an image of Gina straddling Owen's lap and pressing her breasts into his face. How was Ada supposed to compete with that? Gina was a cartoon: too much chest on a too-young woman with baby fat.

She wrote her husband a letter, left it on the hall table, and packed what she needed to live for a week.

She called Sarah. "I'd like to ask a favor. Can I stay with you for a while? Owen is having an affair... No, I just need to get away and think it over... Thank you... I'm on my way."

Sarah met her at the door.

"The only thing I want is short hair," Ada said. "I only grew it for him. Will you cut it for me? Straight across at the nape of my neck."

They set a chair in the kitchen and wrapped a sheet around Ada, then Sara cut.

"It looks awful. Please let me even it out."

"No. I'll go to a beauty parlor. Thank you."

"What do you want me to do with this?" She held out her fist, the long red hair trailing from it.

"Throw it away. Stuff a pillow with it. I don't care. I'd like to rest."

"Is the couch okay? It's all I have."

"The sofa's fine. Here's your album."

"This doesn't feel right." Sarah pulled the record from the sleeve. Only a half came out. She held it in her hand and looked at Ada. "He did this, didn't he?"

"I'm beyond caring right now." She took the album out of Sarah's hands. "I'll ask Wyatt to replace it."

Sarah handed her a set of keys. "I'll unplug the phone so he can't call."

Dougal let himself in shortly after midnight, and Ada closed her eyes until he'd gone back to Sarah's bedroom and she could resume staring at the ceiling. It seemed like she'd just fallen asleep when she was wakened by Sarah leaving.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm taking pictures at a team-building exercise. It's an all-day job. Dougal's gone. You know where everything is. Help yourself. Oh, yeah, so I don't forget: if you talk to that bastard you're married to, tell him to stay out of my way, or he'll be speaking falsetto."

"Shame on you." But she had to smile. She couldn't sleep, and couldn't wake up, so she took a long shower. Washing her hair was easier than it had been in years.

Wearing a towel, she called Wyatt. "Do you have an extra copy of that album you autographed?"

"Ada? Is that you? It's customary to say hello first."

"Can you spare a copy of that album?"

"Sure. You want to drive down and get it?"

"Maybe tomorrow. I don't know. I'll call you."

"I've got some errands in the city. I could drop it at your house."

"I'm not there."

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I have to go now."

At the first stop light she saw Owen's car in the rear-view mirror. She put her car in park and walked back. "Leave me alone. I don't want you near me."

"Just listen for a minute."

"No. I said everything in the letter. I'll call you when I'm ready."

"Please. I made a mistake. Let me explain."

"No. You leave me alone, or I won't come back. I'll divorce you." She walked away before he could answer. When the light changed to green, she kept the car in park and turned on her emergency flashers and waved the honking cars around on the left. Owen's car stayed behind hers. A moment before the light turned red she leaned on the horn and gunned the car through the intersection just ahead of the side traffic, leaving Owen stranded.

She spent the next three hours eating at a little Mexican place on Southwest Boulevard, getting her hair properly cut, and driving aimlessly. The only good thing about driving was that you could think. Wyatt was waiting on the steps at Sarah's when she returned.

"Your hair," he said. "It was so beautiful. What the hell possessed you to cut it?"

"It's customary to say hello first," she replied. "Why are you here?"

"You said you wouldn't be home, and I thought about it. This seemed like the likeliest place, so I looked up Sarah in the phone book." He handed her the album. "It's the other cover, but the disk's the same. It's in mint condition, better than the one he had."

"Thank you."

"I wanted to be sure you were okay."

"I appreciate the concern, but you must have something better to do. I don't need help. Go back to Lawrence."

"Fuck that. I'm not leaving till I know you're okay."

"You still have your gift for saying alienating things."

"You're one to talk. Have you listened to yourself today? You call out of the blue, ask for a copy of the album and hang up on me, and now you're trying to blow me off. Anybody else, I wouldn't put up with it. Come on. Talk to me. Tell me about it."

She sat next to him. The space was barely wide enough for two. "I didn't mean to be so rude," she said.

"I know." He put his arm around her shoulder.

"Please don't," she said. "That's not appropriate."

He took his arm away.

"Thank you... I need something. Something specific. Like a cigarette. Maybe this is why people smoke, it plugs that gap... I don't know what to do. I'm anxious, and I can't get rid of it. It's like I'm a towel, and someone's wringing me tighter and tighter, and I'm worried I can never be like I was, all those creases will stay there and I'll have an ugly soul forever and I'll be bitter and hateful. It's not fair. I didn't do anything to deserve this. I've always tried my best." She told him about the argument, the overheard phone call, the vandalized record album. Then the older, deeper problems: his secretiveness, his need to dominate, her inability to connect with the person behind the mask. She was thinking out loud, the way she used to in the lab when no one was around.

She stared blankly at the passing cars. "Thank you," she said, "I know I talked too long."

"Leave him. He's wrong for you. He hurts you."

"It's not the way it seems. He loves me."

"He has a strange way of showing it," Wyatt said. "What are you going to do?"

"Give him a second chance. But there will be rules. If he breaks them, I'll leave."

"You sure you want to keep trying?"

"Yes. I'm sure." They stood. "Thank you," she said. "I'm going home now."

"If you need anything, if you want to talk, call. Any time."

"No," she said, "I won't. I'm part of the problem. I haven't been committed enough. Owen saw it all along. That's why he's always been jealous of you. I love you, Wyatt. After all the years, I still do. Something draws me to you. When I say your name my heart beats faster. All the years of not knowing where you were, I couldn't forget you, I prayed that you were happy and healthy. But I have to make my marriage work. I love him, too, and we're making a life together... Don't look like that, you'll break my heart. I know you were hoping to get me back." She glanced at the album in her hand. "Do you remember that day you came back from L.A. and you said we didn't even have a choice? You were right, but that's too long ago now. I can't see you. Sooner or later I'd sleep with you, and then I couldn't face myself. I have to be faithful, I have to keep my promise. I love Owen, and he needs me, and we have a life. I can't help the way I feel about you. You're like an addiction. The only way to control it is to stay away. I should have listened to you, but I was young and I didn't know any better. The worst part is that I hurt you." She looked at him a long time, then said, "Goodbye. I'm always saying that to you, aren't I? Goodbye," and touched his cheek with the palm of her hand. "Excuse me if I don't kiss you. I'm not trying to be cruel. It has to be done this way. You should have forgotten me a long time ago. I'm going to forget you. We have to get on with our lives. That's all. I think I've said what needed to be said." She smiled at him the way she would have smiled at anyone else. "You should go now." She walked up the stairs.

She left the two albums together, with a note explaining that the broken one had been replaced with the new one. Wyatt was gone when she came down the stairs and put her things back in her car. At home she let herself in and picked up the phone and called her husband at work. Gina answered.

"I don't care if he is on the other line," Ada said. "I'm his wife, and I'll talk to him right now... Owen, what time can you get home?... Fine. I'll be here."

She made her preparations and sat down to wait at the dining room table. When he came she indicated the chair across from her, and he sat.

"Don't talk," she said. "If you say one word, I will walk out the door and file for divorce. I'm going to talk and you're going to listen. Nod if you understand."

He said nothing, nor did he nod.

"I can leave," she said.

He opened his mouth. She stood. He nodded.

"Good. Let's get started." She picked up the phone. "Rule number one. You're going to fire Gina and give her enough money to go away and never come back." She punched in the number and held out the handset. "Now. She has to be gone tomorrow."

"Gina?" he said. "Gina. I have bad news. I have to let you go."

"Call me when you're done," Ada whispered. She went in the kitchen and closed the door. It was fifteen minutes, and Owen didn't call, but opened the door and beckoned.

"Well?" she asked.

He nodded.

"Good. Rule number two. I will not see Wyatt any more. I want you to understand, I never so much as kissed him, but you were right, I wanted to, and more, and now that I see it, I'm going to make sure that nothing is going to happen, nothing can possibly happen, because he is out of my life, permanently." She took a match from the box of kitchen matches she had set on the table, and lit a corner of the photograph of Wyatt, the only one she owned. The paper and chemicals charred and bubbled and the features vanished one after another, until the fire licked her finger and she dropped the burning paper in the ashtray. She poked at the pieces and burned the fragments until there was nothing left but gray ash and spent matches. She did the same with each of the letters he had sent her from L.A., and the clippings she had saved, using a metal wastebasket instead of the ashtray. She broke the albums she had collected, as Owen had, by snapping them in two. "There. That's done." She looked at her husband. His expression was stunned and passive. She was tempted to say, "Get a grip." The pleasure she was finding in this surprised her.

"Rule number three," she said. "Separate bedrooms. No sex. You're going to have to find a way to make me trust you again. When that happens, you'll know. You have to do something. If you don't, I'll leave. You have six months, starting today."

He nodded.

"Rule number four. This is the most important one. No more affairs. No one-night stands. Nothing. If you do, I'll divorce you. I will find out. You've had other affairs. I know you have. I wasn't willing to face the truth before, but I'm going to be watching from now on, and there will be no more. This is a marriage, and we are together, and there's no room for anyone else. Just you, and me."

He nodded.

"Rule number five. This is the hardest. Stop hiding. You have to open up." She moved around the table and knelt next to him. "Owen, I love you. I loved you because you needed me more than anyone else ever needed me and I could finally stop being alone and be with someone in a way that meant something, I could finally be with someone and make a life together with him. Wyatt didn't need me the way you do. He'll always land on his feet. You saw something in me you'd never seen before. Something you wanted. Something you needed. You told me so. I don't know what it is, but I want to give it to you. I don't understand myself. I don't understand you, or how you see me. I just know that you need me, and I want to give myself to you. Is this true? Do you need me? Do you want me to stay?"

"Yes."

"Then let go. Let go. Let me inside." She stood behind his chair and leaned down and wrapped her arms around him.

"Yes. Thank God. That's all I wanted to say in the car. Just to ask you to stay," he said, staring at the table as she tightened her arms around him and he put his hand on top of hers and felt her cheek rest on top of his head. He felt a vast relief, and something else, a numbness giving way, like anesthesia wearing off.