Corrigendum

The light from the reading lamp seems harsh, as though if given enough time it could set the newspaper in his lap on fire. He might not mind. His eyes are tired from busily not reading the same page for half an hour.

She has descended the stairs at last and is preening in the hallway mirror. He forces himself to raise his head, crane his neck, and look at her. She's more mature now, and somehow thinner, but she still looks like she did 17 years ago. But only to the eye.

And she is humming softly to herself. Something swift and full of promise. He wonders if it was like this back when he couldn't see her... when he was sitting out in the car, humming the same way, waiting for her nightly debut.

"Will you be back this evening?" he asks. His stomach knots, punishes him for his temerity.

She turns and regards him, and offers him a sloppy, silly smile of dismissal even as her eyes dart away. "Yes, of course I will. It's only a meeting to work out a few last details." She closes her hand on her clutch purse like a venus flytrap, suddenly and definitively.

The ice wiggles in his glass as it farts a trapped bubble. He takes a deep breath, wondering if he's drawing in the liberated air with the scents of rye and cola. He forces his expression to brighten; he says, "Knock 'em dead."

"Oh, I will," she smiles. Whether she's being ironic or rewarding him for playing along isn't clear. She blows him a kiss and her heels clack as she marches with determination along the hardwood floor, a model in a wrap about to turn on some private catwalk. "I shouldn't be too long," she calls.

No, you shouldn't, he thinks. You shouldn't be going at all. But she is. His throat tightens and his eyes sting and he suddenly feels like he's outside himself, considering the plot of some soap opera. How will it end? Divorce? A gunshot? Will she give it up out of boredom or disaffection or some latent sense of loyalty, guilt, love? Or will it never really end, simply trailing on and on forever like some bad cough you can't quite shake?

The car starts. Leaves. The garage door comes down. From the wall, the ticking clock watches him, taunting him with each second.