Owen scooped her up and set her gently on the bed, then lay down beside her. They kissed and kissed, and Sarah let her hands explore the thicker tangle of hair on his chest, the play of muscles beneath the warm skin of his flanks, the strong length of his legs. Finally, she urged him onto his back. She gripped his erection, giving it a single, slow stroke, twisting her hand as she went, making him gasp, before she straddled him, settling her knees on each side of his hips. In the dimness of the room, his eyes were open wide, his pupils large and dark, taking her in.
“Wait,” he said hoarsely, just before she slid down, drawing him inside of her. “Do I need…”
She shook her head. She’d had her tubes tied, after Miles. Two boys plus Ruby was all she’d ever want, she thought. Now a part of her cried out for the years they hadn’t had, for the babies they’d never make. She slid down, taking him inside of her, and regret and comparison and every other conscious thought left her mind, until all that was left were bodies, fitted together in the gathering twilight.
* * *
When it was over, Owen fell asleep, curled against her, one leg slung over hers. Sarah lay on her back, looking up at the ceiling, hearing the day winding down. She could hear more of the traffic outside her window than she could in Park Slope; a neighbor’s voice in the hallway, a burst of laughter from the sidewalk below. Sarah stared up into the shadows, hearing Owen’s voice: This is exactly the kind of place where I imagined you living.
This was a life she could have had; maybe the life she should have had, instead of what she’d had at twenty-five. As a new wife and the step-parent of an eight-year-old. A studio room instead of a brownstone; a home with no space for anything but her piano, a life with no room for anything but her music. A half-sized refrigerator, a two-burner stove. Less a home than a touchdown pad, a place to land between engagements in Leipzig and Paris and London. Or, she supposed, between cruises on the ship where she’d play in the cocktail lounge. No children to distract her, no day job to eat up her time. Nothing but music and the man who loved her; the comfort of his body, the balm of his attention. If she and Owen had stayed together she could have had that life. More likely, Sarah thought, she would have spent her twenties at parties and happy hours and on first dates, having her heart broken, feeling increasingly frantic as the finish line loomed.
So she’d chosen Eli, jumping into marriage and a ready-made family, fast-forwarding right through her twenties. Sometimes, it had felt like she’d walked into a movie that had already begun. While her friends were trying to get pregnant, were enduring miscarriages or struggling with babies, she was dealing with a bratty eight-year-old; while they’d been applying to kindergartens she’d been pregnant and planning a bat mitzvah. She hadn’t been unhappy, but an older husband and a stepdaughter had meant she was always a little out of step with her peers. Did that mean she’d chosen incorrectly? Were there lessons she should have been learning, experiences she should have been having in those first years she’d spent as Eli’s wife and Ruby’s stepmother? Could she wish her boys away, or wish she’d never known Ruby, never made it through all of Ruby’s scorn and rejection to the reward on the other side?
In the near-dark, with Owen breathing steadily beside her, no answer came.
Sarah lay awake, thinking, until it was seven o’clock and she knew she’d need to either text home with some excuse or leave immediately. She was trying to edge herself out of the bed when Owen sighed, pulling her close, kissing her neck. “What are you thinking?” he asked.
Sarah shook her head, knowing that she had too many thoughts to sort through, and certainly too many to say out loud. The only thing she knew for sure was that she wasn’t sorry. Maybe, later, there’d be guilt and regret, but for now, there was only the delicious high of new love （or, she supposed, new old love）， the surging chemicals that made her feel like she’d never need to eat or sleep again.
“When can I see you?” Owen asked.
Sarah got out of bed and began gathering her things: skirt and underwear, bra and blouse and shoes. She started to get dressed, reassembling herself as a wife and a mother. “I’m going to be busy for the next few weeks. My stepdaughter’s getting married. On the Cape, as it happens.”
“Congratulations,” Owen said. “When do you leave?”
“Three weeks,” she said. “The wedding’s Fourth of July weekend.”
“Huh. Really? I’ll be on the Cape then.”