“I can’t think about a wife and kids with a job this important to do. I don’t want the responsibility or the distraction. Besides, I just don’t want that kind of commitment. This is the right time for both of us to move on, and see what life has in store for each of us on our own.” She felt her heart ache as he said it. “I’m not even sure I’ll ever want marriage, or not for a long, long time.” Way too late for her by then, as Amy would have reminded her. Her eggs were of no interest to him, and apparently never had been. She felt stupid now for having assumed so much and understood so little. She never thought she had to ask him. It was all so comfortable for so long, she had just drifted down the river with him, and now he was kicking her out of the boat, and paddling on alone. He had made it clear that he didn’t want her in Egypt, now or later. She couldn’t even blame him for it, she was as responsible as he was for the misunderstanding, and she knew it. He hadn’t misled her. They had just lived from day to day and weekend to weekend for six years. And now she was thirty-eight years old, and he was leaving to live his dream, without her. Hearing him say it was the loneliest feeling she’d ever had.

“How do you want to handle this before I go?” he asked her gently. He felt sorry for her-she looked devastated by what he had told her. There was none of the joy for him that he had hoped for, and he realized now that that had been unrealistic. He had never fully understood how far-reaching her hopes were. She hadn’t shared those hopes with him. And now all her broken dreams and incorrect assumptions were crashing down around her. She looked like she’d just been hit by a semi and run over. She felt even worse than she looked.

“What do you mean?” She blew her nose into a tissue and couldn’t stop crying.

“I don’t want to make this any harder for you than it has to be. I’m leaving in three weeks. Do you want to stay with me till then, or would you rather see less of me before I go?”