“I haven’t talked to her in thirty years.”

Amy looks up and gives me a brittle smile.

“But she’s divorced and wanted to talk about old times, huh?”

I rub the arm of the chair.

“Her husband recently died. She’s got two boys in college and now she’s about to lose her farm. Things are pretty tough.”

Amy strokes Jessie’s muzzle with the knuckles of her right hand.

“How long has he been dead?

Two days?”

I laugh, despite myself.

“Since November.”

“What a nice consolation present you were,” Amy says brightly, looking up at me.

“Do you think you’ll fit in over there now? It’s been a long time. But I guess with your mocha-colored wife dead it’s safe for you to go back home.”

Damn! Amy’s fingernails have grown an inch in an instant. She knows more about me than I do myself. Trying not to let this conversation get out of hand, I busy myself by picking up a dog hair from the arm of the chair. It is becoming obvious that Jessie uses the furniture more than I do.

“It’s not like what you think. She’s very confused and bitter. I don’t understand her,” I confess.

“Oh, I bet you’re trying real hard,” Amy says, her voice strained with anger.

“And to think I was feeling sorry for you-all alone in a tiny motel

room. I’m glad I didn’t drive over and surprise myself. What’s it like after three decades? Is it like riding a bicycle? You remember a mole here, a scar there, what she liked, what you liked?”

Though I deserve this beating, I’m not ready to end my relationship with Amy.

“I think you’re going a little overboard,” I say, not able to admit how attracted I am to Angela.

“We’ve had a couple of meals together.”

“Breakfast in bed?” my girlfriend asks, gently moving Jessie’s muzzle off her lap and standing up.

“Did you tell her about me?” she says, beginning to cry.