“Except for business meetings, we barely see each other.”

She sucked in air. Clamped her fingers around the gold bangle she wore at her wrist. “We’ve been… been busy, that’s all.”

“We haven’t had sex in months!”

“It’s just- That’s only temporary.” She heard the same edge of hysteria in her voice that she’d heard so frequently in her mother’s, and she struggled to hold herself back, to stay in control. “Our relationship has… It’s never been based just on sex. We’ve talked about that. This is- It’s temporary,” she repeated.

He took a short, swift step forward. “Come off it, Isabel! Don’t lie to yourself. Our sex life isn’t programmed into your fucking PalmPilot, so it doesn’t exist.”

“Don’t talk to me about PalmPilots! You take yours to bed at night!”

“At least it gets warm in my hand!”

She felt as if he’d slapped her.

He wilted. “I’m sorry. That was unnecessary. And untrue. Most of the time it was all right. It’s just…” He made a small, helpless gesture. “I want passion.”

She grasped the side of the counter. “Passion? We’re grown-ups.” She tried to steady herself, tried to breathe. “If you’re not happy with our sex life, we can… we can get counseling.” But there’d be no counseling. This woman was carrying Michael’s baby. The baby Isabel had someday planned on bearing.

“I don’t want counseling.” His voice dropped. “It’s not my problem, Isabel. It’s yours.”

“That’s not true.”

“It’s… You’re schizo when it comes to sex. Sometimes you get into it. Other times it feels like you’re doing me a favor and you can’t get it over with fast enough. Even worse, sometimes it feels like you’re not there at all.”

“Most men would appreciate a little variety.”

“You need to control everything. Maybe that’s why you don’t like sex that much.”

She couldn’t bear the look of pity he gave her. She should pity him. He was running off with a badly dressed older woman who liked awful movies and drank beer. And wasn’t schizo about sex…