The expiration date is three years from now. The package is unopened. But we were trying to get pregnant. Why would I hide a condom in my wallet? I couldn’t have used the condom with Jacob, if he wanted a child and I didn’t. A condom would require his complicity. If I wanted to prevent pregnancy, I would have gone on the pill or used a diaphragm or . . . what? What if I used the condom with another man? With Aiden? What if I had an affair? Or planned to have one?
If Linny were here, she would know what to do. I can hear her bossy advice in my head, across the miles. You were taking care of yourself, woman. Go with it. Linny, fiercely independent and adventurous, never married. What makes a woman so sure of herself? She has to know who she is, and to know who she is, she needs knowledge of her past. She remembers falling in and out of love, making a decision to marry or remain single. She remembers the choices that define her. But I don’t have that advantage.
This condom was a choice I do not recall. I drop the offending evidence into my purse, take off my wedding ring, and put it on the dressing table. Maybe I have no right to wear it.
Outside, the sky has clouded over. In the sudden rush of rain, the expansive view disappears, and the world shrinks to the size of this room. A rhododendron branch scrapes the window like a fingernail scratching the glass. Jacob whistles softly in the kitchen. Pots and pans clank, water runs from the faucet, and the refrigerator door swings open and closed.
In the bathroom, I strip off my clothes. My body looks unfamiliar, thin and frail after weeks in rehab. As I turn on the shower, a vague image materializes through the mist, the faint, muscular outline of a man. He turns toward me—he’s Jacob, inviting me in. The thrill of anticipation soars through me.
I step into the shower, holding my breath, reaching for the memory, but he dissolves. As the hot water runs over my body, I try to conjure him again, but he’s gone. Through the translucent shower curtain, I can make out the vague shapes of the sink, the mirror, and the blue towels hanging on the rack. I pick up the soap, lather my skin, rinse off. The hot water soothes me.
“Kyra?” Jacob says, pushing the door half open. I can’t see him on the other side.
“Hey,” I say, my heartbeat kicking up.
“Omelet’s ready.” The door starts to close.
“Wait. Don’t go.” I turn off the shower.
“I’m still here.”
“Hand me a towel?”
He reaches in and hands me a towel.
I dry off, wrap the towel around me, and push the shower curtain aside. The room tilts, the floor rushing up to meet me. Jacob grabs my arm, holds me steady. “Whoa, you okay?”
“A little dizzy.”
He steers me to sit on the toilet. The air seems to ripple, the walls undulating. Nausea rises in my throat.
“Deep breaths,” Jacob says. “In through the nose, out through the mouth.” His soothing voice envelops me, and the room settles around me.
“I’m better now. I had a memory of us.”
I hear a catch in his breath. “What kind of memory?”
“I saw you in the shower.”
“Were you with me?”
“You invited me in, and I got in with you. I wanted to . . .”
“We will. Right now, you need to get dressed and eat. I’ll stay with you.”
“I’m not an invalid,” I say.
“I didn’t mean it that way—”
“I know,” I say. “I’m frustrated with myself, that’s all. I’ll be okay.”
He nods, a look of consternation on his face, and leaves me alone.
*
Jacob has set the breakfast table in woven blue place mats, ceramic dishes, silverware, and napkins. He poured a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice for me, the usual energy shake for him.
I sit at the head of the table. “You’ve outdone yourself. This is too much.” I’m aware of the condom in the back pocket of my jeans. Why did I bring it out here? I could’ve left it in my purse or thrown it away. Out of sight, out of mind.
“It’s never too much.” Jacob places a steaming plate in front of me, heaped with a fluffy omelet and hash browns. My nose fills with the smells of onion and mushrooms.
He sits next to me with a big plate of food. “Well, how is it?”
I taste a forkful of fluffy egg and smile at him. “Amazing.”
“If I don’t cook for you, you forget to eat.”
“I’m a lucky woman.” So why would I sleep with someone else? The image of Jacob in the shower returns to me—and a sudden awareness of his body. I remember what he looks like beneath his clothes, the tiny mole on his right shoulder.
Before I fully understand what I’m doing, I place the condom on the table between us. A river of blood rushes in my ears. My fingers are trembling. “I found this in my wallet.”
He doesn’t even blink, doesn’t show any surprise. “Another one?”
“What do you mean, another one?”
“You found one before.”
“But I just found it.”
“You found one before and showed it to me.”
“And put it back in my wallet?” My voice teeters on a high wire.