"Lasagna." Kate said.

"What?"

"Lasagna from Tony's restaurant."

I shook my head. I had no idea what she was talking about.

"It was my dinner: what I dropped on the floor when I saw the New York Post. With your picture. 'Fighting for life'." She quoted, sniffing back tears.

Oh. Yeah, Boston was a brilliant idea. All I'd done was dig up bad feelings and bad memories.

"I don't want to go over all of this. You've had too much to drink…"

"Not enough." She wandered over to the fridge and took out a little bottle of Bacardi.

I took it out of her hand and put it back. "You've had more than enough."

She ran her hand down the side of my face. "You were dead. Faith told me. She's why you're here."

I didn't want to think about it, I didn't want to talk about it. Not now. Not ever. I stepped away from her.

"It's over. Done. Gone."

"Really? Just like that?" She squinted at me, then she exploded, " Why did you bring me back here? I was ready to go – I was leaving, but because of what happened to you I stayed in this hell-hole another full year! Do you really think this whole experience was something I wanted to re-live? It was horrible! The worst two years of my life! If you really wanted to give me a 'Vacation From Hell', you should have just dumped me back in Evan's bedroom!"

Oh, wow.

I had to dig my fingernails into the palm of my hand in order to keep my temper under control.

"Look." I said, tightly, tensely, yet rather reasonably, I thought. "Obviously I made a mistake. I thought you liked it here. I'm sorry."

"Can't we just go home?"

That just ticked me off.

"Our flight's on Saturday." I snapped. "Suck it up. Deal." After that, I was through. "You know what, drink all you want. I don't care." I dropped to the sofa and turned on the TV.

She took the Bacardi and a couple of other little bottles from the fridge and disappeared into the bedroom, slamming the door.

I awoke to the smell of hotel room coffee.

Kate had apparently gotten up and brewed it. Either that or the service here was stellar. And very stealthy.

I was one giant crunched up cramp, having been too stupid to unfold the sleeper sofa.

I unfolded myself, stood and stretched.

I poured what was certain to be a really crappy cup of coffee, and boy was I right. It tasted like coffee-flavored Lestoil. Smelled like it too.

The bedroom door was open, so I took that as an invitation and wandered in, horrible coffee in hand.

Kate was standing at the window gazing at the harbor. She'd showered and was wearing the hotel's white fluffy robe, holding her own mug of coffee.

I could see the airport, and the runway with quite a few planes lined up, but what caught my attention was a really big 747 making the turn, and accelerating for take-off right in our direction.

Even with the speed and very steep ascent it looked as though it was coming right at us and wouldn't clear the building.

Kate gave a little scream and stepped back, dropping her coffee.

I set mine down and put my arms around her as the plane passed overhead.

She didn't push me away. She was trembling.

"That's exactly how I imagined it."She said breathlessly. I didn't need to ask what 'it' she was referring to.

"It's just a flight path."

She nodded and gently broke away from me, moving back to the window, mesmerized, pressing her hands to the glass. The planes, of all sizes, were coming every two minutes.

She stood there for nearly forty-five minutes watching them silently.

I cleaned up her spill and sat in the arm chair on the far side of the room with my lousy cup of coffee, watching her, wondering what was going through her mind.

Finally, she came over, took the mug out of my hand and set it on the dresser then curled up in my lap, arms around my neck. "I'm sorry." She murmured sadly.

"S'okay. Me too."

I can't even describe what I felt when I found what I found in her make-up bag in the bathroom that morning.

Doubt.

Fear.

Hell.

I'd just been looking for the little tiny travel toothpaste.

I couldn't even let myself think about the implications.

Yet.

We had breakfast, well, brunch, really, downstairs at the hotel restaurant. I was amazed I was able to concentrate on the conversation. I didn't even know how to broach the subject with her, so I let it go for the time being.

Kate wanted to go to a museum, a real museum, but she settled for the Museum of Science because there were enough hands-on exhibits to keep me occupied. But it was hard for me to enjoy anything with what I had on my mind.

We then took a cab over to the Boston Commons, because Kate said she wanted to go there.

Compared to Central Park it was kind of a postage stamp. Anywhere I stood, I could see from one side to the other. The swan boats were tucked away for the season, but that was okay – Kate just wanted to walk around.

She seemed to be giving the whole trip a renewed effort, which, under other circumstances would have been great.

I knew she could tell I was a little preoccupied, and I wasn't about to wreck the entire day. But every time I looked at her I had doubts. Worries. I couldn't understand why she'd do something like this without telling me. I mean, knowing how she was feeling, I understood why she'd gone this route, but not why she hadn't thought I should know about it. Unless there was something more to it that I wasn't seeing.

She dragged me into the 'Cheers' bar, which was right there, and was really disappointing because it looked nothing like what you saw on TV. Kate told me there was a replica of the TV bar at Quincy Market, whatever that was.

We walked the Freedom Trail, checked out a bar called 'The Black Rose' and its counterpart 'The Purple Shamrock', which were both right near that Quincy Market thing.

After a while, near dusk, we headed over to the Aquarium. We spent a good deal of time walking the ramp around the monstrous circular tank in the middle. Kate liked watching the sharks, but what really delighted her was the penguins on the ground floor. We almost didn't do anything else but watch them dive and swim. She thought they were cute.

I'd been watching her all day, looking for a clue as to what was going on with her, but I got nothing. Everything seemed to be as it had been, but clearly, from the little package in my pocket, hadn't been for at least three weeks. If not more. Who knew what else I'd missed.

She stood watching the penguins with this little smile on her face.

"Dinner?" I said.

"Hm." She replied. "Where?"

"Over there." I gestured out the front of the building. There was a seafood restaurant right across from the entrance.

"Legal. Sounds good. It's early enough, we can get in."

I didn't bring up the irony of a visit to an aquarium and then the visit to the seafood place just across the street. Although it probably would have made her laugh.

Blubber for dinner.

It had been all I could think about all day. And I still wasn't sure how to approach it. Who knew how she'd react? And this wasn't really the time or the place.

After we ordered, I just studied her silently.

"What?" she asked.

I didn't answer.

"What!" she demanded.

I just shook my head.

"You're letting your hair get long. I'ts starting to curl," she said.

"This is what you're sniping about?"

"I'm not sniping, just making an observation. I like it."

I was impatient. "Why are we here? You're unhappy. What can I do?"

"I don't know."

"See, give me a problem and I can fix it. I can't fix it if I don't understand the problem."

She shrugged. "You thought a couple of days away would make everything better?"

"Are you leaving me?" I asked.

"No." she said shortly, looking away. That told me the thought had crossed her mind, and suddenly the one thing I'd never been more certain of in my life seemed as unstable as one of Mikey's block towers.

"What do we do?"

"I don't know!" she repeated, eyes closed, frustrated. She didn't know, and I thought about how many times I'd looked to her for answers and this time she didn't have any.

I couldn't think about it anymore. It had to come out. I had to know.

I took the blue packet out of my pocket and tossed it across the table at her.

She quickly scooped it up and put it in her purse, giving me an incomprehensible look.

"You got something you want to tell me?"

"No." She said.

"Really." This had been nagging at me all day, so I just blurted out what had been bothering me."So there's nothing going on between you and Brian?" Because, really, what was I supposed to think?

And I knew instantly by the look on her face that I'd made a mistake.

"That's what you think of me."She nodded, sucked in a breath, covered her mouth with her hand. Breathed out through her nose. Keeping tears back.

She rose.

Snagged the waiter.

"My friend here will be dining alone tonight."

And she walked out.

By the time I paid the bill for the food we never got and stormed outside she was gone.

"Kate!" I pounded on the door.

She'd set the safety bolt. My key card worked but I couldn't get beyond that.

"Huh." I heard her say through the two inch gap.

"Let me in."

"Pff."

"I'll make a scene. You know I will. And it'll be loud."

She snapped back the bolt, opened the door and looked at me with contempt. "How dare you even imply," was all she said. But there were tears. She turned and went into the bedroom, again, slamming the door. This time locking it.

Boy, this was great.

Just great.

The next morning, Kate called room service for breakfast.

I'd had the presence of mind to open the sleeper sofa. She carelessly dropped a plate of food next to me and went to eat her breakfast in the bedroom. Only she didn't, as far as I could tell when we were getting ready to leave. Just one tiny bite out of a croissant. Eggs congealing, fruit left to dry out.

Breakfast: silent.

Cab to the airport: silent.

Flight to New York: silent.

Drive home: silent.

When we actually got home she did say hi to Mom and Sul, kissed the kids, then disappeared into the bedroom with a harsh slam of the door.

"What did you do?" Mom and Sully asked in unison.

"Shut up." I went to the kitchen for a glass of water and left them looking at each other.