Erika and I walked home companionably. It might perhaps be more accurate to say we wove home, as over the course of the evening at our friends', just the four of us had consumed a bottle of Pinot Noir and almost all of a bottle of Rye. We were mostly silent, holding hands and content to marshal our thoughts for the conversation when we got home that we both wanted and feared a little.

I let us in through the front door into the dark house. Our daughter Merry would be at her grandparents' the whole weekend. Erika and I were each primed to talk things out about the way...