Free Reflection by Diane Chamberlain

Reflection, where she would find an apartment and interview for the teaching positions she’d applied for through the mail. Then on August second she would pick Luke up at the airport in Philadelphia. They would have a month to get to know each other once more before she had to start teaching and Luke began his search for a civilian job.
    She couldn’t eat or sleep as the day of her departure neared. Although she and Michael had not acted on their feelings, she still felt weighed down by guilt. What if being with Luke again didn’t undo her yearning for Michael? She tried to forget the week she’d spent with the angry stranger in San Francisco. She had made a commitment to her husband, and she was determined to honor it. She had loved him her entire life. Maybe the distance she’d been feeling from him had been nothing more than self-protection. In case he’d been killed, she’d shielded herself from loving him too much. Surely when they were together again in Reflection she would once again feel her deep love for him.
    She was packing when Michael came into her cinderblock house. Her suitcase was on her bed, her back to the door, and she didn’t realize he was there until she felt his arms circle her from behind. She didn’t even start, as though she’d been expecting him to come, to embrace her this way. He buried his lips against her neck, and she leaned back against him. His hands pressed flat against her rib cage, just below her breasts, and she closed her eyes when he moved one hand underneath the hem of her shirt. He slipped his hand up to her bare breast. She held her breath as he pressed his palm against her, running his thumb across her erect nipple, and she knew that if she didn’t stop what was happening right that minute, it would be too late for both of them.
    â€œMichael.” She drew his hand away gently and pulled herself from his arms. “We can’t.”
    Michael sat down on her bed and looked at his hand as if he could still feel the weight of her breast on his fingers. He shook his head, raising his face to her. “We’ve been saints, Rachel,” he said. “They should canonize us.”
    â€œI’m really proud of how we’ve handled this whole situation,” she said. “We don’t have anything to be ashamed of.” But she did feel ashamed. Not for what had just happened, but for the thoughts of Michael that were always with her, for those moments in her bed at night when she would stroke her own body, imagining her hands were his. Never Luke’s. She would try to conjure up images of her husband, but he remained an elusive stranger in her fantasies.
    Michael’s eyes were red. “I don’t want you to leave,” he said.
    She sat down next to him, pulling him into a quiet, pained embrace.
    â€œI love you,” he said finally.
    â€œI love you, too,” she whispered.
    â€œI don’t think I’ll ever feel this way about anyone else. Maybe it’s wrong for me to say that, but I want you to know it.” He straightened his shoulders, seeming to get a grip on himself. “And I want you to go home and be a terrific wife to Luke. Make him happy, ‘cause he’s been through some shit over there, all right?”
    â€œYes, okay,” she said. “I guess it’s good you’ll still be here, and that we won’t get to see each other for a year.”
    â€œUh-huh.” He didn’t sound any more convinced than she did.
    â€œAnd that Katy’s coming.”
    He nodded. “Right. And by the time I get home, we’ll all be back to normal and you’ll look at me and say to yourself, ‘What the hell did I see in him?’”
    RACHEL CLOSED THE WEDDING album and leaned against the bare attic wall, wiping her damp cheeks with her fingers. She had not seen Michael again after that night. He had taught the following day, and someone else had taken her