Link climbs into his little bed. Fifi smooths his hair and kisses his forehead. There’s a night-light in the corner, an impressive number of books on the bookshelf, a four-foot giraffe, a photograph of a couple that Fifi guesses is his father and his father’s girlfriend. It’s Leland’s old beau, Frazier. Even a few months ago—hell, even a week ago—Fifi would have studied the picture, interested to see the kind of man who had so enraptured Leland in her youth.

But now, it’s irrelevant.

“Good night, sweet prince,” Fifi says. “Sleep tight.”

Fifi and Mallory settle at the harvest table, which is lit by one votive candle. Mallory pours them each a glass of wine. She has, amazingly, pulled together dinner: pan-roasted chicken in a mustard cream sauce and a green salad with cornbread croutons that she made herself.

Mallory raises her glass. “Honestly, I can’t believe you’re here. I can’t believe Lee let you come alone.”

Fifi smiles. They touch glasses, drink.

“I’m leaving Leland,” Fifi says.

“What?” Mallory says. “Why?”

Why does anyone leave anyone? The love has run out, or it has changed. It’s probably the latter for Fifi. Despite all the pushier emotions Leland inspires—annoyance chief among them—Fifi knows she will always love her. Leland is family; she’s a sister. But Fifi doesn’t want to live with a sister or make love to a sister.

There’s something else too, a secret. Fifi recently bumped into a writer she’d met back in 1995 at Bread Loaf. Her name was Pilar Rosario, she was Dominican, and when they’d met, it was immediately clear that Fifi and Pilar were attracted to each other. But Fifi had been in the first thrill of her relationship with Leland at that time, so her attraction to Pilar went unexplored.

Then a month or so ago, after a reading Fifi gave at the Ninety-Second Street Y, Pilar appeared—conveniently while Leland was sucking up to The New Yorker’s fiction editor—and slipped Fifi her card.

“Call me,” she said. “I’d love to catch up.”

Fifi nearly threw the card away—meeting Pilar would be a betrayal of Leland—but she changed her mind, deciding one glass of wine couldn’t hurt.

But, ah…it had hurt. Fifi found herself drawn to Pilar for many reasons, not least of which was that Pilar confessed she wanted a baby.

Yes, Fifi had said, shocking herself. Me too. This was the real betrayal, because although Fifi hadn’t slept with Pilar or even seen her again, she had acknowledged this truth despite the fact that Fifi and Leland had vowed that theirs would be a blissfully childless existence. Leland felt fiercely about this—no children, no pets, not even a houseplant, nothing to care for except themselves.

Talking with Pilar allowed Fifi to recognize the pressure building inside of her, her biology asserting itself to the point that Fifi can no longer ignore or deny it. She wants a baby.

“That’s why I came to Nantucket,” Fifi tells Mallory. “I wanted you to be the first to know. Leland is going to need you.”

Summer #14: 2006

What are we talking about in 2006? TSA; Steve Irwin; “SexyBack”; the Duke lacrosse case; Dick Cheney’s shooting accident; Miranda Priestly; AIG and Tyco; the subprime-mortgage crisis; TRX; The Osbournes; Ben Bernanke; “Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose”; Suri Cruise; Tom DeLay; Eat Pray Love; Meredith Grey and Dr. McDreamy.

The reality of serving in the House of Representatives is as follows: You spend one year getting things done and one year campaigning so you will be reelected so you can get more things done.

Who originally came up with a two-year term? One of the Framers of the Constitution who was terrified of imperial rule, possibly someone with a personal vendetta against King George III. Jake understands protection from the power hungry, but he personally thinks a three-year term in the House would be more productive.

Ursula is thinking more like a six-year term.

After she finds out that she’s running unopposed in her second reelection bid, she tells Jake she wants to run for the Senate in 2008.

“Tom’s term is up and he’s slipping in the polls,” she says. “Now is the time, I think. I know I’m still the new kid on the block, but…”

But…have you seen the news? Ursula de Gournsey is a media darling. The Washington correspondent for Newsweek noted the monogram on her attaché case as she ascended the steps of the Capitol Building in her four-inch stilettos and started referring to her as UDG, a trend that quickly caught on. UDG has become a very hot commodity in American politics.

First of all, she’s a young, beautiful, stylish woman. And how does Ursula handle being described as such? Jake only too vividly recalls their college days. Tell me I’m smart. Tell me I’m strong. Is it not insulting to have the press clamoring for the names of her designers, for the shade of her lipstick? (It’s Cherries in the Snow by Revlon, which she purchased for the first time at age fifteen from L. S. Ayres with money she made selling programs at Notre Dame games. True to her roots, she has stuck with the lipstick.) Jake would have said all the attention to Ursula’s physical traits rather than her intellectual gifts would have caused her to show her fangs, but he’s wrong. Ursula is happy to get attention any way she can. If it takes Cherries in the Snow to spotlight the welfare-reform bill that she wrote with Rhode Island senator Vincent Stengel, so be it. Ursula is style plus substance, as many people have pointed out. The complete package.

Ursula was built for politics, but Jake has no stomach for it. He has firm views on the issues—and some of his views differ from Ursula’s—but he loathes the wheeling and dealing, the bargaining chips, the side deals. He tries to stay out of it; he appears only at wholesome family-friendly events—Toys for Tots drives at the Grape Street mall, polka dancing on Dyngus Day—and he always has Bess in tow. Bess is in kindergarten at McKinley Elementary. Jake walks her to school every morning and picks her up every afternoon. They still have their nanny, Prue, in Washington, but here in South Bend, Jake handles all things Bess-related, and if he’s traveling for work, then Ursula’s mother, Lynette, covers. Bess visits with Jake’s parents every Sunday. They are surprisingly hands-on, taking Bess to the Potawatomi Zoo or to the ice-skating rink, the same rink where Jake met Ursula so many years ago.

They eat a lot of pizza from Barnaby’s.

Jake would like a second child. He would like a third, a fourth, even a fifth. But Ursula barely sees Bess as it is now. She’s supposed to handle school pickup on Wednesdays and take Bess to her ballet class, but last Wednesday, Ursula had a meeting with workers from the ethanol plant and the week before she was at a first-responders event and when Jake asked her if she wanted to change “her” day, she snapped at him.

I’m doing all this for her, Ursula said.

She’s too young to understand that, Jake said. She needs her mother.

You’re not too young to understand it, Ursula said. Bess is fine. I read to her at night. We cuddle. I took her to the library last week. The person who has a problem is you.

Ursula is right; he does have a problem. He isn’t happy. Every day he thinks about asking for a divorce. He thinks about Mallory, about taking Bess and moving to Nantucket, about marrying Mallory and having a child of their own.