Time has banked the fire that once burned so brightly between us. It still simmers just below the surface of our lives and occasionally flares at a word, a touch, a smile, but we are no longer the hot lovers we were before. When we make love now it’s a gentle affair, languid and slow, the movements careful like turning the crumbling pages of an ancient book. Most evenings we settle for lying close together, Jim’s arms around me, my body clutched tight against his. There will come a time when one or the other of us finally lies alone, maybe sooner than we care to think, and the thought of going on without him terrifies me. I’ve lived with him for so long now I can’t imagine anything else. So I smooth over his forgetfulness, these little spells that seem to come more frequently, and I tell m
