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Perhaps I had also recognized it in the eyes of those misshapen little women from the circus; perhaps I hadn’t wanted to, and so made myself forget I’d seen it. Until now.

I shook my head, even as Charles looked at me with a new, understanding smile. I did not know what to say—so I squeezed his hand and smiled back. For a moment, we were miniature reflections of Mr. and Mrs. Bleeker, seated opposite.

For a moment, it didn’t even feel as if we were pretending.

We passed the rest of the evening like this, four friends reminiscing about old times. When the clock struck ten, we all rose and took the elevator up to the sixth floor. Mrs. Bleeker knelt down to give me her usual good-night kiss, and Mr. Bleeker shook Charles’s hand. Then we turned and went to our respective rooms—theirs farther down the hall than ours—shutting the doors behind us.

Once Charles and I changed clothes and climbed my steps up to bed, he immediately rolled over to the far side, leaving me the space I always desired. But I did not roll over; I lay upon my back, conscious of his presence in my bed in a way I never had been before. His warm, steadily breathing presence; the way his nightcap got twisted about, even before he closed his eyes; his feet sticking out of his nightshirt, pink and sturdy as a child’s but with little tufts of hair upon his toes—like a man.

I had never felt my husband’s bare feet against mine. We had never slept that closely; our bodies had never been so entwined. There was always so much distance between us, and I had put it there, from the very beginning. Charles, ever-pleasing, ever-pliable, had not once questioned why I had. Neither had I—until tonight.

Holding my breath, I stretched my right hand toward my husband. Yet I could not reach him; the bed was too big, and I was too small; suddenly, delicately, femininely small. Afraid to disturb him, afraid not to, I inched even closer and reached out again.

Sighing with a soft, unexpected snort, Charles rolled over in his sleep and moved tantalizingly closer toward me.

That wasn’t what I expected; I snatched my hand back as if he were a hot coal, something dangerous, something that could hurt me. Rolling away onto my own side, my heart racing so that it was pounding in my ears, I held my breath, waiting to see what he would do next. But he did nothing; he simply continued to sleep, unaware of my turmoil on the other side of the deep, linen-covered—and dream-littered—chasm between us. I almost laughed at the absurdity, the feminine timidity, of my behavior—why, I was forty-one! I had been married for twenty years now. I was behaving like a blushing virgin—

Which, of course, I was. I wouldn’t have known what to do even if I had touched my husband’s shoulder, turned him to me, welcomed him with a smile. Beyond that, I couldn’t imagine; my horror of everything that had happened to Minnie would not allow me to think further than an embrace, perhaps maybe a kiss.

I plumped my pillow and told myself, sternly, to get to sleep; we had three performances on the morrow, and we had to get to the theater early to try out the stereopticon. Even though I tossed and turned and couldn’t get comfortable, my nightgown unusually hot and heavy against my tingling skin, I did finally go to sleep that night.

And when I did, I later remembered, I was thinking of my husband. For only the first time in our marriage; also, as it turned out, the last.

“VINNIE! VINNIE!”

A hand was upon my shoulder—my husband’s hand. I snuggled down into my pillow and smiled; hadn’t I just fallen asleep, imagining this, his hand upon me?

“Vinnie! Wake up!” He was shaking me, not tenderly but forcefully. “Wake up! I hear people in the hall! I smell smoke!”

I opened my eyes; Charles was kneeling beside me, his nightcap all twisted about, his eyes, even in the darkness, wide with fear. I yawned—and swallowed a faint trace of smoke.

Then I heard the footsteps in the hall, the confusion. Someone was banging on our door; someone was banging on all the doors in our