The Lone Pilgrim by Laurie Colwin Page A

friend and that any small glimmer of desire you may have had for me is dead. Is that right?”
    â€œNo,” said Martha. “I just don’t know what I’m doing.”
    â€œI see,” said William. “You mean that I’m an old hardboiled sinner seeing as how you were a pure young thing and I was an old married wreck when first we met.”
    â€œBut I wasn’t married then,” said Martha. She put her head in her hands. Tears spurted from her eyes. What the sight of William caused in her had nothing to do with the life she was living. In her life she was a happily married woman. She loved Robert: she adored him. She loved the way their apartment looked. She liked the friends they entertained, the trips they took, the time they spent together. But her desire for William had hardly died down. The past was a tunnel—a long, dark tunnel you strolled down on your own. Whatever had been between them was not past.
    It did not occur to her to hide the truth from William. It would have been perfectly acceptable for her to stand up, smooth down her skirt, and make an exit speech, making sure to twist her wedding ring nervously as she did so. Yes, she could have said, it is just friendship between us now, and if you cannot accept that I must leave.
    She knew the rules: if you slept with a man—not your husband—that was adultery, and that was what she and William were negotiating. But this was between her and William. William had some prior claim. She had loved him before she had met Robert, and she believed that without William she might not have known that any happiness could be hers. He had lifted some cloud from around her, and she was grateful to him. After this afternoon with him, she might not see him again for years. She might never see him again at all. What did that have to do with her life with Robert?
    â€œSo you’re a properly married woman now,” William said. “And I’m about to suffer for it.”
    â€œDon’t tease me, William,” said Martha. “I do love you. You know I do.” She began to cry again, but William made no move to console her.
    â€œLook here,” said William. “It’s very simple. We still love each other. We deserve each other. We’re both married and we’re both happily married. There’s still a lot between us, and it’s nobody’s business but ours. Someone is going to get cheated on—you or me or Robert or Catherine.”
    It was, in fact, just that simple. There was plenty of room on the couch. One move and there she would be. She would have the opportunity to remember that she loved the way William smelled. She knew how easy it would be—something you could slide right into. It would take a series of warm, drowsy motions to get them off the couch, down the hallway, and between those blue and white striped sheets. And hadn’t some ultimate betrayal already taken place? What was the difference between sleeping with your old lover and admitting that you loved him, or of feeling such happiness in his presence, or of weeping in front of him in a stranger’s house—a place you might pass hundreds of times with your husband who would never know that you had any connection to the place at all?
    â€œI’d never press you,” said William. He got up to make himself a drink, pushing the table out of his way. That abrupt shove let her know how angry he was.
    She sat very still in the hard, straight-backed chair. The sky was clouding up, she could see. What sun there was filtered through the stranger’s curtained windows. It would eventually rain or snow. Everything in the room looked silvery.
    When William came back with his drink, Martha stood up. She had been sitting so rigidly that her knees hurt.
    â€œAre you finally going to pounce on me?” William said. “Or are you leaving? Or are you going to pace around some more?”
    â€œI was going to