Mid-30s. Medium height, medium build, very businessman type. Short, expensively cut, black hair, going salt-and-pepper at the temples.

His wife doesn't understand him the way I can, of course. They aren't happy and live separate lives. He cuts short family vacations, because work is piling up at home, and I wait patiently by the telephone for his furtive call. He wears dark gray suits with burgundy ties and I take my time easing him out of them, unwrapping my finely tailored present. He and his wife are on the verge of divorce. It is inevitable. They both know they are no longer in love. I tell myself he'll never leave her and that I don't care if he doesn't. I start to believe myself.

And then they have another child. And then another.