Sheila thought a moment. 'I just don't believe that,' she said. 'I think it's deeper and if I could just figure out what it was, everything would get better.'

Lydia took her hand over the table, patted it. 'You know him better than me, Sheila. I'm sure you're right. I hope so.'

Sheila really blamed herself.

That was her training as well as her inclination. She always blamed herself, for everything that went wrong – their kids, Mark's dissatisfaction. It had to be her.

She knew it couldn't be Mark, who didn't make mistakes – not the way other people did. Factual errors, even in casual conversation? Forget it. The man knew everything and forgot nothing. Sheila made lists to remember all of the many jobs she had to do every day or week. Mark just did them – all, and perfectly. He never needed a reminder. He never lost his temper. (Well, once in a very great while, and invariably when she had provoked him beyond the limits of a saint.) Mark Dooher performed his duties flawlessly.

So if something was wrong, and something was, it had to be Sheila's fault.

She thought it was probably the double-whammy of the onset of menopause and Jason – their baby – finally going off to school. Way off, to Boulder, where he could snowboard all winter long. And Mark Jr working now on that rig in Alaska, trying to make enough to pay the bills for a summer of his sculpting since his father wouldn't help him if he was so set on doing that kind of stupid art, and Susan in New York.

Well, at least Susan called every week or so, tried to keep them up on her life, though Sheila and especially Mark would never understand why she had no interest in men.

Sheila's hormones, too, had caught up with her, swirled her into depression. She couldn't deny it and she couldn't blame Mark. She'd become miserable to live with, a hard truth to accept for Sheila Graham Dooher, who until she turned forty-five was one of the city's legendary partyers.