He opened the door of his house, and walked in, and found himself face to face with a total stranger.
She looked the same, of course. The same dark, beautiful eyes, the same finely molded face, the same tiny figure, kept amazingly slender and youthful over the years. Her hair was graying more than he had remembered, but it was the same Marian he had left, eight months before. And yet, he knew the moment that he saw her that something was gone, and could never be replaced, not in a thousand years of life.
Her lips trembled as she searched his face, and she said, "I'm glad you're back, Griff—" and he walked into the room like a ghost, moving about as though he were not really here at all, but seeing things in a strange, subtly distorted dream. The desk, with its perpetual litter just as he had left it; the honey barrel full of pipes, charred and scratched from years of use, still slightly fragrant from the last smoking. And there were the soft chairs, the worn carpet, the pictures on the walls. The same, fine, smooth architectural lines that had pleased him so when the house was built five years before; scientifically fitted to their personalities in a thousand subtle ways, as any house should be. He sat down gingerly, as though expecting to fall through into the dust beneath the house, and looked again at Marian, his lovely, wonderful Marian—for the house which had fit so well was a nightmare to his sensibilities now, garish and impossible—and a Marian he didn't know was waiting eagerly for him to speak.
And then he knew it was only a dream, his memories of the life before. He waited for the surge of excitement, waited for the eager words to come into his throat, the words telling her how very much he had missed her, what plans he had made for them—and his throat was dry, and no words came. He waited for the joy of returning to sweep through him, and it did not come. It was dead, as dead as the ashes in that last-smoked pipe.
He didn't say a word. He didn't have to, because he saw it in her eyes, wide heart-broken eyes. He looked at her, and all he felt was pity. He didn't even feel shame, though he felt he should. And he knew that words would only make it harder, would be whiplashes to make the wounds deeper and more vicious.
He picked up his hat, and brushed her cheek with his lips, and without a word he walked out through the door.
Marian had not changed, not in any way. The house was the same, kept in readiness, waiting for him. No, Marian hadn't changed.
It was he who had changed.