Free The Truth of the Matter by Robb Forman Dew Page A

feel about you . . . With how things have changed, now. The way we feel about each other. I didn’t want you to think that it was only . . . ah, only about —”
    “I never thought that,” Agnes interrupted. “I haven’t been worried. Will, I haven’t really thought about it. Let’s not talk about it tonight. You’re so busy with the Agriculture Council . . . and all the children. Even if they meant not to care, they might be upset. I don’t see any reason to make things more complicated.”
    “Well, my girls are only at home now and then, with their husbands, and Helen has the baby. Our children are all pretty much grown up. And why would they care? They’d probably be glad,” Will said, and Agnes uneasily entertained that idea for a few moments. The children probably would be glad. Agnes would finally be relieved of any financial worries—she wouldn’t even have to teach unless she wanted to. And, also, if any one of her children felt responsible for her happiness, it would relieve him or her of that burden. But, still, she couldn’t quite imagine working through the intricate convolutions of a marriage with Will, the constant adjustments as you find out more and more what the other person is like. She knew she didn’t have the energy to deal with the inevitable guilt, to work up the patience, nor could she ever summon the eventual sustained state of forgiveness that’s required in a marriage when each spouse proves to be not quite what the other expected. Agnes didn’t have the desire to regain the emotional flexibility essential in a marriage.
    “Well, Agnes. You know we can’t keep carrying on like this,” Will said. “Running around in secret. It makes me feel like a fool. That’s just not the kind of man I’ve ever been. It’s not the kind of person you’ve ever been, either. You’re not at all like that.”
    “No? I’m not?” she asked, because she hadn’t given much thought to being any particular kind of person, and she was intrigued that—at least in Will’s opinion—she had become one.
    “You know, Agnes, I honestly thought that of all the women I’ve ever known, you’d be the last one to be coy. Women always feel they have to pretend . . . I don’t know . . . modesty? Or like they aren’t really aware of what’s happening. . . .” He was soft-voiced and musing, but also annoyed. She wondered if it would hurt Will’s feelings that it hadn’t crossed her mind to pretend any particular state of mind when she was with him, and, too, it occurred to her just now that her lack of pretense was probably because she wasn’t at all in love with him.
    “You aren’t the sort of woman,” he said earnestly, “who could possibly be so . . . well . . . It’s not that I’m any expert, but no woman in the world can enjoy herself so much in bed and not be in love. And you must know that on
my
part . . .” He paused to gather his words carefully, and Agnes was shot through with a spike of amused irritation as he maintained a didactic solemnity.
    “I’m feeling just as foolish as I did before I rushed off to Canada before we entered the first war. I even asked your father’s permission just to say good-bye to you. Lord, I was a wreck! But what your father wanted to tell me was that I was a damned fool to go to Canada. That I’d have plenty of time to get killed for my own country. I had to press him to get him off the subject, because he was only telling me what I’d started to think myself. I’d lost all my courage overnight, and I —”
    “That was perfectly natural,” Agnes interrupted, but Will went on.
    “No, I really had. And I wanted to talk to you. . . . When I finally got through to him that I wanted to see you before I left, he didn’t turn a hair. ‘She’s down at the house, I think.’ He hardly gave it a thought. I’ll never forget him looking up at me for a minute, like he hadn’t ever thought of that,” Will went on.
    “‘Will Agnes care?’ he said to