It was 5 am. Patrick woke up and saw Shelagh's side of the bed empty. He heaved a sigh. Although they were further from each other than ever, they still seemed to follow each other's sleeping patterns. Or the deep need to be in bed...together. So much that the absence of other made you wake up. The pressure of the situation was no help to sleep, of course.

He went downstairs, and in the bleak light of the morning, Shelagh was sitting in the kitchen reading a prayer book. She was reading aloud a psalm in a very low voice.

She startled when she saw him in the doorway. "Patrick...". She shut her prayer book and there was a quiet pleading in her voice.

He made a wan attempt at humour. "Maybe we should sometimes try to meet in this kitchen at daytime."

"It would be good to meet...at some level...anywhere," was Shelagh's slightly weary response.

"Couldn't you sleep? How long have you been here?"

"For half an hour. I wanted to pray."

"I'm sorry I interrupted."

"There is no interruption, prayer is a continuous way of life".

"I am sorry I have interrupted your life, I mean."

"Oh Patrick. I think religious life has taught me that a life is a series of interruptions."

"Really?"

Shelagh sighed. "Remember the times you were driving me in your car to the hospital? To the sanatorium? I feel like we're again and again at the sanatorium gate. Saying trivialities to each other. Except now there is no triple treatment."

Patrick sat down. At least she was talking to him, although he couldn't take it all in. "Some dreams came true," he said with a mixture of longing and desperation.

"And I was never lonely, because I was married to you". The past tense pierced Patrick's heart.

"Patrick." She took his arm and put it deliberately around her. He let her do that although he wasn't sure of what was expected of him. "Talk to me," she pleaded.

After a moment, he started to talk. Like to himself, with an occasional stammer, some long pauses between the sentences. It was fractured, inconsequential, fuzzy.

"On that road, when I saw you...after you had phoned me from the sanatorium. I was dizzy. That you would be mine. That there was a possibility that you would be mine. That you would accept me. As your spouse. That you would take a lowly, agnostic, widowed GP...as your vocation. Or whatever you call it in religious life.

My delight was so great that it kind of made other considerations...unimportant. For a while at least. After Moira's death, I was downtrodden, sad and numb, but at least I did not have...these compulsions. You know, nightmares and irritation and so on. I was only disconnected, like a dream-walker. I had a son to raise, a quite a handful of a son, and I was loaded with work. Then you came to my life. And it still seemed like dream-walking. I felt for you, and it seemed like a dream. The realities, you being a nun and your TB, I don't know, I was in a kind of autopilot which made me brave. Braver than I ever was.

It is no excuse, of course. I wanted to forget. To think I had passed...all those symptoms. I wanted to forget that I had ever been...not in my right mind. At mental hospital."

Shelagh made a whimpering noise and drew a breath at this.

Patrick took a minute and swallowed. He touched her cheek, from a distance. As in awe. " 'Do not laugh at me; For, as I am a man, I think this lady To be my child Cordelia'." He sighed. "Or should I say 'You have some cause'?"*

Shelagh took a firmer grip of his arm around her. "No cause. I'd like to say no cause. But I can't. I need to see how this happened. It is just not helpful to not look at the causes in this case."

"I am sorry. I have perhaps not been in my right mind since Moira died. I should never have let you to tie your life with me. You should have stayed in the Order, perhaps."

"Patrick. You're starting that blaming game again. It was not entirely your doing, my leaving the order."

"Wasn't it? Tell me about that. Tell me that I didn't bring this misery to you."

"This isn't pure misery. As you said, so many dreams came true."

"Just not all of them."

There was a long silence. Finally, Shelagh broke it.

"Patrick, we have to learn to make amends and find a way. It is true that you were remarkably brave when you wrote to me at the sanatorium. You perhaps didn't say enough. In some respect. But at the time, you said some wonderful things that gave me strength. A strength to live, with you or without you. You saved me from living in a lie. Even if you could not go on being so brave...or honest...it still matters to me."

"Thank you, my dear. It matters to me to hear that."

Again, a silence fell. Then Patrick turned to look at her, with a pained expression.

"There are things that are difficult to express...not just about Northfield. About the war. About my...first marriage. Just as there are things in your life experience that I can't always understand. I will try, but I won't always succeed."

"Yes, and I gave the promise. For better and for worse. The religious life, even if I have forfeited a right to say anything about it, as Sr Evangeline says, is not made of dreams. So I am not a dream-chaser. Not always. But you have to find your own way. A way to go on living until it does not hurt. A way of being...in this marriage. If I am not able to help you, you must find other help."

"You do help me. And I will find other help. I promise."

*Shakespeare, King Lear