Free Eye of Flame by Pamela Sargent

mean, if there’s nothing I can do. My mother might want me to come home. Patti’s almost like another daughter to her instead of just a niece.”
    “You can leave the keys there, I have a set. Same with the car keys. There’s no reason for you to stay unless Dena or Louise want you to. We may be taking Patti back East if she—” Joe groaned. “Oh God, she’s really dying. I’m already—”
    “Joe,” she said helplessly.
    “I’ve got to go.”
    “If you need me for anything before I leave—”
    “Yeah, I know.”
    The receiver clicked. She could not stay; she knew what was waiting for her if she did. She walked toward the terrace and opened the sliding door.
    The street below was quiet; she could hear the distant roar of the sea. Tad was waiting, his hands inside the pockets of his jacket; his hair shone in the morning light. He lifted his head as she leaned against the railing.
    “Jackie.”
    She closed her eyes so that she would not have to look at him. “I don’t know what you are,” she said. “I don’t know how you did what you did, but it’s not going to happen to me.”
    “Jackie—”
    She turned away and went back inside.
     
    She dialed Jerome’s office. The telephone rang twice before he picked it up. “Hello.”
    “Jerry, it’s Jackie. I tried to call before.”
    “Well, you know how it is. That seminar, and all the department politics—”
    “I’m coming home tomorrow,” she said. “My flight should be in around five o’clock your time. I’ll take a cab if you can’t pick me up.”
    “Sounds as if California wasn’t what you expected.”
    She swallowed, wondering how she could tell him what had happened. “Patti’s sick,” she said. “Joe’s worried about her, and there’s nothing I can do for her, and he thought—” She would have to try to explain it all when she was home. “The airline told me I couldn’t use my return ticket, the super-saver, so I’ll have to pay full fare, but—”
    “Then maybe you should stay.”
    “I can’t. I’ll explain it when I’m there. Don’t you miss me?” She heard the desperate whine in her voice as she spoke. “I need you now; you don’t know how much.”
    “I didn’t want to tell you this yet,” he responded. “I thought I’d have more time to think it over, to work it out alone before you got back. I think—I need some space, Jackie. I’m thinking of moving out, at least for a while, until I can decide—”
    She gripped the receiver. “There’s someone else, isn’t there?” He did not reply. “You wouldn’t be leaving if you didn’t have someone else lined up.”
    “It isn’t just that.” He was admitting that her guess had been right. “We’ve been in a rut; you know that. It’s as if we’ve just been going through the motions. I kept feeling that my life was over. I thought maybe you felt the same way, that it was why you needed to get away for a while.”
    “I see,” she said bitterly. “Who is she? That grad student you’ve been advising, or that Milton specialist the department hired so you’d all have a babe to ogle between classes?” She thought of Tad and the accusations Jerome could hurl at her. “You don’t know … Patti’s really sick; she may—”
    “Jackie, this isn’t the time. I’ve got a class in a few minutes. We can talk it all over when you get back. I don’t want to be unfair to you, but it’s not as though we made a final commitment or anything. It isn’t fair to you to let you hang on just because I couldn’t bring myself to make the break.”
    “I know,” she muttered. “No strings. I’ll take a cab. I trust you’ll have the grace to get her out of the apartment before I get back.” She slammed down the receiver.
    Her life would never be more than it was, than it had been; that thought stabbed into her brain with the sharpness of a weapon. She could struggle to transcend the impermanence of this world only to lose that battle in the end. She seemed