Could she really go through with this? Her eyes searched across the small shining lake, along to the narrow shore and the trail's edge, up the hill. Her home. She could see the very window where she had stood just minutes earlier, and she could see too the damned glow coming from Matthew's office, where, on their anniversary night, he was fondling his true love, Wallaby.
Yes, she could go through with this, and would. She turned and knocked three times on the Dutch door, so loudly that she startled herself. She heard the short, hollow tamp of footsteps, the clacking sound of the door latch. For an instant it felt as if her wedding band had tightened around her finger. Irrational.
The top half of the door swung open, and there he stood, wearing only jeans and wire-framed reading glasses. His expression bore no surprise. A knowing smile formed on his full lips. She started breathing again. Plumes of mist danced around her head as the warmth of the cottage bled outside into the chilly air. He removed his glasses and closed the top door for a moment, then the entire door opened and he stepped back, his arm extended. She quickly and nervously glanced around the room as she went inside, taking in at once its simple furnishings and his things. There were boots beside the front door, a black T-shirt tossed over the back of the couch, a beer bottle beneath the shaded lamp, a wineglass beside the bottle, a pair of brown leather gloves beside the glass. She heard her own blood pulse in her ears, felt dizzy and a little buzzed by the wine, the rush of activity, and now the stillness.
Following her gaze, Jean-Pierre quickly stepped into the tiny living room. He picked up the gloves. They were women's gloves, she could see that now. Everything was happening so fast.
His shoulders sagged. "You saw them," he said.
Her eyes quickly jumped to the bottle, to the glass, to the gloves, back to the glass. She thought of the car that had just gone. She looked into his eyes. "What?" she said, her voice not sounding like her own.
He held the gloves out to her. "I wanted to wrap them and surprise you."
She blinked. "For me?"
"Of course."
She accepted the gloves in her right hand. There were a few small, barely noticeable scratches on them, but the stitching was clean and new. She wanted to say something, but when she looked into his eyes again, whatever she had thought she wanted to say vanished, and in its place was desire, like what she had felt when he kissed her in the stall.