If they ever had a child.

When they walked out of the restaurant later that night, a light snow was falling. Jack dropped off Charlie at his house, and by the time he arrived home, the snow had changed to sleet. He found Maggie sitting in the kitchen, looking haggard and far older than her thirty-eight years.

“I’m sorry about your patient,” he said and wrapped his arms around her. He meant only to comfort her, but he could feel her stiffen at the embrace.

She pulled away. “Please, Jack,” she whispered. “Not now.”

“It’s only a hug. I’m not asking to make love.”

“I’m sorry. I just can’t tell anymore.”

“And would it be so awful if I did want to make love to my wife? It’s been so long since we . . .”

“I’m tired.” Already she was moving away from him.

“Maggie, is it me?” he called to her. “I can handle the truth, so just tell me. Is it something I’ve done or haven’t done?” He paused, afraid to ask the question but needing to know. “Is there someone else?”

“What? Oh God, Jack, no. It’s nothing like that. All I want to do right now is take a shower and go to sleep.” She slipped away and headed up the stairs to their bedroom.

He went into the living room, turned off the lights, and for a few moments sat in the dark, listening to sleet pelt the window. He remembered their wedding day and the vows they’d made to each other. A year later, at her medical school graduation, she’d taken another vow, to care for her patients. Who came first?

He was no longer sure.

That night, lying beside his slumbering wife, he wished he, too, could fall asleep. He considered the bottle of Ativan in his nightstand drawer and was tempted to shake out a pill or two, just to help him through the night. But he’d drunk too much wine at dinner, and the last time he’d mixed Ativan and alcohol, he’d gone for a drive in his pajamas and woken up that morning with no memory of the adventure.

He closed his eyes and yearned for oblivion, but sleep refused to come. So he lay awake, inhaling Maggie’s scent of soap and apricot shampoo, remembering how they used to be. I miss you, he thought.

I miss us.

CHAPTER 5

TARYN

The more she looks at him, the more the fire grows . . . her gaze, her whole heart, is riveted on him now . . .

And that was the beginning of the end for tragic Queen Dido, whose fatal mistake was saving the life of a shipwrecked warrior. Taryn regretted ever opening this infuriating book, but Virgil’s The Aeneid was the week’s assigned reading for the Star-Crossed Lovers class. Professor Dorian had warned them that the romance ended in tragedy, so she had been braced for an unhappy ending. She’d known either Aeneas or Queen Dido or both would meet an untimely end.

She hadn’t been prepared to be so pissed off about it.

All weekend she’d been thinking about Queen Dido and her lover, Aeneas, the Trojan warrior who’d fought valiantly to defend his city from the attacking Greeks. Defeated by the enemy, Aeneas was forced to flee as his city, Troy, was sacked, and he and his men sailed away on ships bound for Italy. But the gods were not kind. Their fleet was battered by storms, and his ship was lost. Barely alive, Aeneas and his men washed ashore in Tyre, a land ruled by the beautiful widow Queen Dido.

If only Dido had immediately ordered Aeneas put to the sword. Or had him tossed without pity back into the sea to drown. Had she done so, she might have lived to a serene old age, beloved by her subjects. She could have found happiness with a man who was far more worthy of her love. But no, Dido was too tenderhearted and trusting of these strangers from Troy. She offered them food and shelter and safety. And most reckless of all, she offered Aeneas her heart. Casting aside her dignity, she sacrificed her reputation as a chaste widow-queen, all for the love of a faithless stranger.

A stranger who betrayed and abandoned her.

Aeneas sailed off in pursuit of his own glory, leaving behind his heartbroken lover. In sorrow Dido climbed onto the funeral pyre that she herself had ordered built. There she unsheathed a sword of Trojan steel. Desperate for oblivion, she plunged the blade into her own body.

. . . and all at once the warmth slipped away, the life dissolved in the winds.

From his ship, Aeneas could see the distant glow of Dido’s funeral pyre, alight with flames. Surely he knew what that fire signified. He knew that at that moment the flames were consuming the flesh of the woman who loved him, the woman who’d sacrificed everything for him. Did he grieve? Did he turn back the ship in remorse? No, he sailed on in cold pursuit of fortune and glory.

Taryn wanted to rip this book to shreds and flush it down the toilet. Or build a little bonfire in her kitchen sink and watch the pages burn, the way poor Dido burned. But they’d be discussing the story in class tomorrow, so she shoved the book into her backpack. Oh, she would have plenty to say in class about Aeneas. About so-called heroes who betrayed the women who loved them.

That night she dreamed about fire. About a woman standing among the flames, her hair alight, her mouth agape in a shriek. The woman reached out in agony, and Taryn wanted to save her, to drag her from the pyre and beat out the flames, but she was paralyzed. She could only watch as the woman burned, as her body blackened and shriveled to ash.

She jolted awake to the wail of a distant ambulance, and for a moment she lay exhausted, her heart still pounding from the nightmare. Slowly she registered the sound of traffic and the glare of daylight in her window. Then she glanced at the bedside clock and bolted out of bed.

She was late for Professor Dorian’s class, but Cody had promised to save a seat for her. She spotted Cody slouched in his usual seat at the far end of the seminar table, his Red Sox baseball cap pulled low over his brow. As she eased quietly into the room, the snap of the door’s latch made a few heads turn to look at her. Professor Dorian paused in the middle of his discussion, and she felt his gaze follow her as she made her way around the table to where Cody was sitting. The brief silence magnified the scrape of Cody’s chair, the hiss of his down jacket as he pulled it off the empty chair beside him.

“Where were you?” Cody whispered as she sat down. “I was starting to think you weren’t coming to class.”

“I overslept. What’d I miss?”

“Just some overview stuff. I took notes. I’ll give you a copy later.”

“Thanks, Cody. You’re the best.” And she meant it. What would she do without Cody, who was always ready to share his notes and his lunch? She really should try to be nicer to him.

Professor Dorian was still looking at her, but not in an annoyed way. Rather, it was as if she were some weird forest creature who’d wandered into his class and he didn’t know what to make of her. Then, as if he’d suddenly remembered where he was, he launched back into the lecture and turned to the chalkboard, where four pairs of names were already scrawled.

Tristan and Isolde

Jason and Medea

Abelard and Heloise

Romeo and Juliet

“So far in this course, we’ve talked about four pairs of doomed lovers,” Professor Dorian said. He turned to face them again, and for a moment she thought he was staring straight at her. “Last week it was Abelard and Heloise. Now it’s time to move on to another pair whose story ends in tragedy. And like Jason and Medea, the story of Aeneas and Dido involves betrayal.” He wrote the lovers’ names on the chalkboard. “By now, you all should have read The Aeneid.” He looked around to see a few nods, a few noncommittal shrugs. “Okay, good. Who wants to comment?”

There was the usual silence; no one ever wanted to be the first to speak up.

“I think it’s pretty cool that Aeneas is the guy who founded Rome,” said Jessica. “I always thought it was founded by two guys who were suckled by wolves as babies. I never knew it was Aeneas.”

“That’s according to Virgil, anyway,” said Professor Dorian. “He wrote that Aeneas was a Trojan prince who defended his city against the Greeks. After the fall of Troy, he flees to Italy and becomes the first hero of Rome. Now that you’ve read The Aeneid, do you all agree he’s a hero?” Dorian glanced around the room. “Anyone?”

“Obviously he’s a hero,” Jason said. “The Trojans thought so.”

“What about his relationship with Queen Dido? The fact he abandoned her and she committed suicide? Does that influence your opinion of him?”

“Why should it?” Luke said. “Dido didn’t have to kill herself. That was her choice and hers alone.”

“And Aeneas had more important things to deal with,” said Jason. “He had a kingdom to build. His men needed a leader. And anyway, Tyre wasn’t even his homeland. He didn’t owe it any loyalty.”