“Why didn't you tell me?” She turned and her face was filled with accusation.

“I…” He began but couldn't finish. There was nothing he could say now to make it better, to take back the pain he had just inflicted on the woman he had once so greatly loved. But seven years was a long time. It should have been long enough to solder them to each other forever, and yet it hadn't, and somehow, somehow, during the election coverage the year before, he had slipped. He had meant to end it when they all got back from Washington. He had really meant to. But Liz hadn't let him, and it had gone on. And on, and on… until now she had forced his hand. And the bitch of it was that she was pregnant and refused to get rid of the kid. “I didn't know what to tell you, Sam. I didn't… and I thought-”

“I don't give a damn what you thought!” Suddenly her eyes blazed at the man she had known and loved for eleven years. They had become lovers at nineteen. He had been the first man she had ever slept with, when they were both at Yale. He had been so big and blond and beautiful, a football hero, the big man on campus, the golden boy everybody loved, including Sam, who worshiped him from the first moment they met. “You know what I thought, you son of a bitch? I thought you were faithful to me. That's what I thought. I thought you gave a damn. I thought”-her voice quavered for the first time since he'd said the awful words-“I thought you loved me.”

“I do.” There were tears running slowly down his cheeks as he said the words.

“Oh, yeah?” She was crying openly now and she felt as though he had just torn out her heart and thrown it on the floor. “Then how come you're moving out? How come you walked in here like a crazy person, dammit, and when I said, ‘Hi, babe, how was your day?’ you said, ‘I'm having an affair with Liz Jones and I'm moving out.’” Her voice was growing hysterical as she advanced on him.