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pages of a book. As Leonard watched, fascinated, yet with a sensation of mild revulsion, Valerie then covered the meat with a strip of plastic wrap and pounded at it with a meat mallet,
short deft blows to reduce it to a uniform quarter-inch thickness. Leonard winced a little with the blows. He said, “Did he—I mean Yardman—ever remarry?” and Valerie made an
impatient gesture to signal that she didn’t want to be distracted, not just now. This was important! This was to be their dinner! Carefully she slid the butterflied steak into a large,
shallow dish and poured the marinade over it. Leonard saw that Valerie’s face had thickened since she’d been Oliver Yardman’s lover; her body had thickened, gravity was tugging at
her breasts, thighs. At the corners of her eyes and mouth were fine white lines, and the coppery red hair had faded. Yet still Valerie was a striking woman, a rich man’s daughter whose sense
of her self-worth shone in her eyes, in her lustrous teeth, in her sharp dismissive laughter like the sheen of the expensive kitchen utensils hanging overhead. There was something sensual and
languorous in Valerie’s face when she concentrated on food, an almost childlike bliss, an air of happy expectation. Leonard thought, Food is eros without the risk of heartbreak. Unlike a
lover, food will never reject you.
    Leonard asked another time if Yardman had remarried and Valerie said, “How would I know, darling?” in a tone of faint exasperation. Leonard said, “From mutual friends, you
might have heard.” Valerie carried the steak in a covered dish to the refrigerator, where it would marinate for two hours. They never ate before 8:30 P.M. , and sometimes later; it was the
custom of their lives together, for they’d never had children to necessitate early meals, the routines of a perfunctory American life. Valerie said, “‘Mutual
friends.’” She laughed sharply. “We don’t have any.” Again Leonard noted the present tense: don’t. “And you’ve never kept in touch,” he
said, and Valerie said, “You know we didn’t.” She was frowning, uneasy. Or maybe she was annoyed. To flare up in anger was a sign of weakness; Valerie hid such weaknesses. A sign
of vulnerability, and Valerie was not vulnerable. Not any longer.
    Leonard said, “Well. That seems rather sad, in a way.”
    At the sink, which was designed to resemble a deep, old-fashioned kitchen sink of another era, Valerie vigorously washed her hands, stained with watery blood. She washed the ten-inch gleaming
knife with the surgically sharpened blade, each of the utensils she’d been using. It was something of a fetish for Valerie, to keep her beautiful kitchen as spotless as she could while
working in it. As she took care to remove her jewelry to set aside as she worked.
    On her left hand, Valerie wore the diamond engagement ring and the matching wedding band Leonard had given her. On her right hand, Valerie wore a square-cut emerald in an antique setting that
she’d said she’d inherited from her grandmother. Only now did Leonard wonder if the emerald ring was the engagement ring her first husband had given her, which she’d shifted to
her right hand after their marriage had ended.
    “Sad for who, Leonard? Sad for me? For you?”
    That night, in their bed. A vast tundra of a bed. As if she’d sensed something in his manner, a subtle shift of tone, a quaver in his voice of withheld hurt, or anger,
Valerie turned to him with a smile: “I’ve been missing you, darling.” Her meaning might have been literal, for Leonard had been traveling for his firm lately, working with Atlanta
lawyers in preparation for an appeal in the federal court there, but there was another meaning too. He thought, She wants to make amends. Their lovemaking was calm, measured, methodical,
lasting perhaps eight minutes. It was their custom to make love at night, before sleep, the high-ceilinged bedroom lit by just a single lamp. There was a