Ada saw Owen off from the front steps at 8:00 every morning, and nearly every evening we returned in time for dinner. Ada spent the time between tending to Clover and puttering around the house. Her days were filled with small, repetitive tasks: nursing her child, changing diapers, doing laundry, cooking, cleaning, listening to the radio, reading. Her life had a dreamlike quality, from which she wanted never to wake. Nothing seemed real; all edges had softened. She stayed in the house except for trips to the grocery, the library, and occasionally to the doctor, who never found anything wrong with the child. In the evening, Owen tended to Clover so Ada could ride her bicycle and have an hour to herself after dinner and before bed.

Then autumn came, and the days of shortened sunlight. Owen was spending half his work week in Atlanta and New York; Ada feared that Don Grady was grooming her husband for the home office. Trapped, restive, and often alone, her peace collapsed. She asked Nina for advice: "The house is closing in on me. Everything is shrinking."

"I felt terribly sad for a year after each of my children was born," Nina said. "I should have gotten out more. Why don't you get a job? Or go back to your volunteer work?"

"I don't want to leave Clover in day care."

"I can look after her. I'd like to look after her."

The arrangement was for Nina would come to to come on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday evenings (the days Owen was out of town), and on Saturday mornings: the times Ada tutored students in Spanish at the Corinth library. She loved the students, they responded to that love, and her calendar filled quickly. Her waiting list was soon longer than the number of students she was tutoring. The single unexpected flaw was when she came home from the library and had to throttle back to normal. She wanted only to sit in her rocking chair, but Clover usually demanded attention.

"I'm thinking about going back to school," she announced to her husband one morning.

Owen was trimming his mustache. "Not again," he said.

"Just a B.A this time. A teaching degree."

"It won't be 'just' anything. I've seen you. When you get wrapped up in something, you get completely wrapped up."

"Speaks the man who said he was going to work less. I thought you were going to cut back on travel, too. You were home a lot at first. What happened?"

"Is that what this is about? Are you mad that I'm away so much? That I'm working longer hours?"

"No. But you have a daughter now. You should spend more time at home."

"Soon. This will all be over in a few months."

"I've heard that before. Don't begrudge me this. I need a life, too. I want to be a teacher. I've finally found the thing I'm led to do."

He checked the evenness of his mustache in the magnifying mirror and said, "Mmmm".

"I might as well talk to the wall. It would listen better," she muttered. She went to check on Clover and found her inspecting her feet. Clover never cried for attention when she woke up. She was never at a loss for something to do. Full of happiness, always smiling. Clover beamed at her and held out her arms and waved them.

Ada leaned over the crib and smiled. "Yes, how's my good girl? But you're just like your father, aren't you? You don't like me spending time at the library, either, do you, sweetie? You'll understand when you grow up. And meantime, there's your Gamma. She plays with you. She loves you, doesn't she? Everyone loves baby Clover." Ada picked her up. Clover gave her little gurgling laugh and pulled a handful of her mother's hair and grabbed her lower lip. "I'm only gone a few hours, baby. There's nothing to be jealous of. You still come first."

Ada liked to listen to her students talk about their lives, their friends, their families, so unlike her own at that age. She used the pretext of teaching colloquial Spanish. She asked them to talk about themselves and translated what they said back to them and had them repeat the Spanish to her. The variety of these young people surprised her. She had insolent ones and shy ones and polite ones and confident ones, bright and slow ones, jocks and nerds, beauties and one girl so homely she was painful to see, rich kids and others whose parents could barely afford the ten dollars an hour she charged. She kept a journal, writing in it her observations on the students and what seemed to work with each, and his or her strengths and weaknesses. She wanted to spend the hour just listening, but she had to give the parents their money's worth, so she held the colloquial part to ten minutes at the end of the hour. She thought she should be paying the parents instead of the other way around.

After a conversation with a student about the differences between Spanish and Portuguese, he brought an album of Brazilian music. "I like this stuff," he said, and blushed.

"Thank you." She accepted the album. "I'll bring it back next week."

"That's okay. Keep it." His face was flaming red. "Just don't tell anyone I listen to that. They think you're weird if you don't listen to rock."

He was unable to look her in the face except in brief glances. He was in love with her! "Thank you. That's very generous. Are you sure you can afford this?"

"It's okay." He made a shooing gesture with both hands and quickly pulled his textbook from his rucksack.

"That's very sweet," she said. He cringed. She would have to be careful with this one.

She remembered the album that weekend, and her promise to listen to it, and put it on the turntable and was surprised at its cheer. Clover was playing on the floor and Ada picked her up and held her hand and said, "Let's dance," and spun around and dipped and shuffled and sang along wordlessly while Clover giggled at this new game. When she set the baby down, Clover cried to be picked up again, then urged Ada on, waving her arms and babbling, until she danced again. When half an hour had passed, Ada was too tired to go on and Clover was cranky and ready for a nap. Ada fell asleep with her in her own large bed.

It became their habit to dance every day, at first to sambas and bossanovas and then to various other Latin and Caribbean music, and sometimes to African drums, or zydeco. Mostly they stuck with Latin rhythms. Her favorites were Astrud Gilberto and Antonio Carlos Jobim. She said nothing, afraid that Owen would laugh at her.

She danced late with her daughter one evening, trying to forget what was bothering her. The signs were appearing: Owen's hours at work were getting longer, he was gone more, and worst of all, he was retreating behind his mask again. If this kept up, he would resume having affairs. Ada was frightened. She felt marooned in the house, alone with the child; much as she adored her daughter, Clover wasn't enough. Ada was beginning to wonder where her life was going. She had usually been too busy to think about the question. Time was finite; what should she be doing with it?

She had put dough in the breadmaker and made a mousse and was dancing with Clover, who looked straight into her eyes, with that unabashed baby's directness, and smiled.

"Happy girl! Happy girl!" Ada sang.

The music was loud and she didn't hear Owen. He was home early. She twirled with the baby and saw her husband in the doorway, looking puzzled. Clover reached for him and he took her in his arms. But Clover wasn't happy. She waved her arms and babbled.

"She wants you to dance," Ada explained.

He danced slowly.

Ada urged him on. "Don't be afraid. No one will laugh. Move!" she commanded. "She likes to be swung around and bounced up and down." Ada demonstrated.

Owen followed. Clover gurgled.

"Follow me," Ada cried. The record paused to lift the needle and start over on the first track. "Come on!"

He danced until his shoes hurt him, then he took them off and danced in his socks, but soon his feet were sore from the bare wood and he handed Clover back to her mother and sat on the couch and watched Ada dance and sing wordlessly with the music. Her face, often as absorbed as a yogi's, was open with a pure joyful thoughtlessness.

How she loved that child. How she forgot herself for it. She had never felt that for him. His eyes stung. Ada didn't notice, wrapped up in looking at her child. Their child. Clover was his child, too. He'd never expected to be jealous of his own daughter. Ada loved that girl more than she had ever loved him. His wife only saw him as a sperm donor and a bank account.

"I'm going to change," he announced. Ada nodded without looking at him. He went upstairs to get out of his clothes. He had hung up the coat and pants and was standing in the closet, not dressed yet, when he broke down sobbing. She wasn't his. She always loved someone else, but she never loved him. She'd never been his, and now she never would be.

When he'd finished weeping, he went in the bathroom to wash his eyes and instead took off his socks and underwear and turned on the shower and stepped in. He let the water run over his head for a long time and thought about a threesome he'd had, back in college.

Sarah. He had bumped into her and her girlfriend somewhere and gone home with them. He had been too drunk to get it up until the women began to entertain each other. The other one had been enormously heavy-breasted and he remembered the way they had hung down as she straddled Sarah naked and leaned down to kiss her on the lips. Sarah. God, she was sexy. Still sexy now. That day she'd sold him the photographs. She wasn't beautiful, or even pretty, but she gave off a sex vibe, and always had. Several of his friends had commented on it.

That other woman that night, what was her name? She was the one who wanted the threesome. Sarah had been reluctant. She'd only wanted to please her girlfriend. Barbara. That was it. Barbara the Breasts.

He was getting an erection now, as he had then at the sight of the women. He pumped his hard-on as he remembered entering Barbara from behind, then Sarah from the front, as Barbara lay on top of Sarah, swivelling on her. Then, oh God, Barbara had raised up onto her knees and spread them out and pointed at her cunt and pulled on Sarah until Sarah had moved around and the women were sixty-nining each other and Sarah guided him into Barbara and then he fucked Barbara doggy style while Sarah used her tongue on him, too, on both him and Barbara together as he slid in and out. God. He'd never imagined such a thing, never had it that way before or since. The sensation of pressure on top, with that soft tongue on the bottom of his penis.

"Are you hungry?" Ada asked, and he shot his load. She must have been standing in the bathroom door.

The glass of the shower was opaque with moisture. If he couldn't see her and the light was brighter on her side then she couldn't see him, thank God.

"Owen?"

"Yes."

"Dinner's on the stove. It should be ready soon."

Impeccably bad timing. He turned off the water.

Downstairs, she was startled when he walked up behind her at the stove and kissed her on the neck. She smiled and kissed him on the cheek.

"Go sit down," she said. "I can take care of this."

"Is the baby asleep?"

"Yes. Dancing always tires her out."

"Is that why you've been buying all those -- "

"Bossanova albums? Yes."

"That's funny."

"Please. It's embarrassing. I wanted it secret."

"Embarrassing? Why?"

"I'm not sure."

He went in the next room to watch the evening news while she cooked.

Dinner was all his favorite things -- asparagus, brie, steak, a complicated salad, warm bread straight from the breadmaker, wine, and a mousse for dessert.

"What have I done to deserve this?" he asked when they sat down. "This wonderful dinner. Everything I like, even a big red wine."

"Nothing. I just wanted to talk."

"What about?"

"Nothing. I should have said, 'I just wanted you to talk'. I haven't been paying enough attention to you since the baby."

The bread went down wrong and choked him and he panicked. He tried to cough it up but it was too firmly lodged. He struck himself on the breastbone.

"What's wrong?" The little crease appeared between her eyebrows.

He pointed to his throat. She looked blank. He was going to die, right here at the dinner table, because his wife didn't understand. He put both hands on his throat, as if strangling himself.

"Are you choking?"

He was able to control the panic enough to nod. She hurried around the table.

"Stand up."

When he stood, she tried the Heimlich maneuver, but he was too tall. She pounded him on the back with the heel of her hand.

Harder, for God's sake, harder.

She hit him a huge whack and the bread came flying out and hit his wine glass and knocked it over, staining the old linen tablecloth purple. He took a huge, relieved breath.

"Oh, love. Say something." She was next to him now, leaning on the table and looking sideways up into his face.

"God, I thought it was all over. That was close. Thank you."

"Owen, oh my dear Owen." She reached for him.

"Watch out." He dammed the wine with a napkin before it dripped off the table onto the carpet. Then he turned and embraced her.

"I was so frightened," she said.

"So was I." He laughed. "What a coward. So was I."

She held him for a long minute and then said, "I want to get rid of this stain." The cloth was an heirloom. "Will you be all right? Should I stay here?"

"No. Go ahead."

She returned with sponge and paper towels, and a glass of water for him, and sopped up the worst of the wine. Then she removed the tablecloth and took it away. Owen sat down to dinner at the bare table, alone. He was finishing the food and had drunk all the wine and three Scotches by the time she returned, and he watched as she ate. It was very odd, her saying what had caused him to choke, when he'd been thinking that very thing before he went up to change his clothes.

He asked her about the tablecloth but she seemed neither to hear nor to care. He tried next to draw her out about her students, but she answered in distracted monosyllables and short sentences that didn't leave room for followup.

She put down the knife and fork. "I'm not hungry. I need to sleep."

"I'll clean up."

"I'll get this in the morning. Come to bed with me?"

"It's not too early? Oh, yes. Let's go."

Though not as modest as when they had married, she still preferred the light off, and always took off her pajamas with her back to him and slipped quickly between the sheets. She rarely initiated sex. He usually had only a glimpse of her naked. Her thinness embarrassed her, but that wasn't all. She always held something back, in spite of that openness and transparency that had drawn him to her. She kept a separateness he had long since realized she would always have. Now, for the first time in years, she came to bed naked. She kissed him.

"I need you," she said. "I was afraid I'd lost you." She reached for his penis. It didn't respond.

He shouldn't have jerked off in the shower. Or maybe it was her unexpected forwardness. Whatever the reason, he wasn't up to the job.

"What's wrong?" she asked. "Don't you want me?"

"God, yes. It's probably too much alcohol, or choking on the bread. I don't know."

"I need you to need me, Owen. Please, oh, please. When you were choking I was so afraid. I feel like I'm drowning. I'm so lost sometimes. I need you. You've always been ready before."

"I just can't right now. There are other ways." He moved his lips to her breasts and the flow of milk started and he suckled for a few minutes, her hands gently holding his head, her breathing heavy and ragged. He moved his lips to her navel, then to her hips, her thighs, the insides of her knees. She was groaning, trying to steer his head. He waited, slowly homing in, circling until she begged him to stop teasing her. She was slippery, she had that beach, ocean, mussel smell. The lips of her vagina became almost molten. He used his nose and tongue together, on her clitoris and between her labia, rubbing up and down while darting in and out. She put her hands on the back of his head and rubbed frantically against his face, faster than he could react to. He grabbed her buttocks and held on. She arched her back and a pungent smell washed over him and he heard that strange sound she made sometimes, something between a whimper and a cry of relief.

Now he had an erection. He moved up and entered her. She lay as if drugged, unable to respond. She was wider since she'd had the baby, and she'd come and her vagina scarcely gripped. His erection wasn't strong enough. He needed more friction. He thought about the threesome again, and it firmed him but not enough. He pushed and pushed, but everything was staying the same: the erection, his detachment. He watched the minutes go by on the clock on the bedside table. How long was this going to take? His lower back was starting to hurt. Now Ada began to grunt involuntarily with this thrusts. He remembered fucking a semiconscious girl once. She had made exactly the same sound. He was finally hard enough, but Ada was too wet and big.

He rolled her over and entered her from behind, doggie style, with her lying flat on her stomach, instead of up on her knees. Deeper, but still less friction then he wanted. He pushed faster. She was gasping in rhythm now. He pulled out. She rose but he pushed her down, then grasped his penis and pressed it between her buttocks.

"No!" She slapped sideways with her left hand.

He trapped her left elbow under his, and her upper right arm under his right elbow and pressed her face into the pillow with his right hand and rested all his weight on her and thrust. Nice and tight. Finally.

She struggled and thrashed desperately and finally managed to turn her head to the side. "Oh, no, no, Owen, please stop. Don't do this. You're hurting me." She was sobbing. "Don't do this."

He felt the orgasm coming gradually, from far away. He was distantly aware of pain in his back but it only increased his excitement. He was caught up in a cloud of sensation. He heard her shouting "Stop" but didn't understand the word. He couldn't have stopped if he'd tried. His body was moving of its own volition, mechanically, with such speed and power that he was only a passenger on the ride and then he came as if he were exploding and felt nothing but the ringing of a great hammer on an anvil in his head. He rolled off her. In a moment he was asleep.