"Angela, what are you doing here?"

I look up from the work I brought home. "Uh, I live here."

"Shouldn't you be off on a business trip?"

"Mother, you're my secretary. You know I don't have any business trips planned this month."

"Not even to woo back the Lincoln account?"

I stare at her. "How long have you known?"

She sighs and sits next to me on the couch. "I suspected for a long time. And Tony confirmed it two summers ago."

"Two summers ago." The summer he didn't go because of Kathleen. Neither of them told me, even afterwards. "All this time. You pretended to really think Tony and I weren't, weren't involved. Physically I mean."

"Well, that's what you two were pretending, even after you finally, finally! Finally admitted you were in love. Even after you were engaged. Hell, it was bad enough that Tony moved me into Sam's teenage-girl bedroom, and then I had to share it with my bony daughter during the remodeling!"

"Well, Mother, it wouldn't have been right for me to stay in Tony's room when Jonathan was in the house."

"And those were your only two options? Couldn't you have had a little Ingrid & Anthony time?"

"So you know about that part, too," I say quietly.

"Not in nitty-gritty detail. But, yes. And this is their twenty-ninth anniversary this weekend, isn't it?"

"Well, yes."

"So again, I ask, what are you doing here?"

"Mother, I know you mean well. And I know it's hard on you, after all your hopes for me and Tony. But it just can't work. We're two people who were never meant to get together."

"You really believe that, Angela?"

"Mother, I don't want to believe it. But I have to. We tried. We tried really hard. We did everything we could to make it work, but we just couldn't."

"So you're going to just throw away eight years?"

"Mother."

"All right, fine, if you don't want to be with Tony, then don't be with Tony. But have you considered poor Ingrid?"

"Mother, I'm Ingrid."

She shakes her head. "She may be a part of you, but I don't think she's been around here lately. Which is a shame, because it sounds like she took after me, like you took after Robert."

"Mother, please don't encourage my schizophrenia. It's caused enough problems."

"You think that's what caused your problems?"

"Well, some of them."

"Angela, I will freely admit that when I encouraged you to hire Tony, one of my motives, in addition to the hope of a male role model for my weird grandson, a clean house to visit, and of course good Italian cooking to mooch, was I also hoped for a sexually satisfied daughter."

"Mother!"

"Angela, I saw the men you went out with before and after Michael. Stiffs, and not in a good way. I sensed that Tony's warmth and passion were just what you needed. And he thought you were beautiful when I showed him your picture. So I just had to get him in the house and let nature take its course. But then you two had to go and be Ingrid & Anthony on the side!"

I can't help laughing. "Pretty sneaky of us, wasn't it?"

"Yes. But it looks like you shot yourselves in the foot while trying to foil me. Because now you're depriving Ingrid of Anthony. And that's a rotten thing to do to your alter ego."

I can't laugh this time. She's right, in her own warped way. Trying not to cry, I say, "What makes you think Tony's waiting for me?"

"Just a feeling. The same feeling I had when you were probably waiting for him two years ago."

She knows too much. But it's comforting in a way, to share this secret with her. "I was," I say quietly. "I know it was wrong. He was with Kathleen then."

She shakes her head. "He was never with Kathleen. Not really with her. His body, yes, but never his heart, never his soul."

"Well, unfortunately the part that was with her was the main part that Anthony offered Ingrid."

"I doubt that's true. I doubt it was ever just a little fling for you two. I think you could no more keep your hearts and souls out of it than you could keep your lust out of your close, 'platonic' friendship."

I don't know how to reply to that.

"Angela, go to him. If you can't return to him in Iowa, then just go upstate."

"Mother, I can't. I can't be divided like that anymore. It was bad enough when we lived in the same house and we had the hope of a reunion every summer. But what am I supposed to do? Drive up there, be with him for two days, and then not see him again for another year?"

"You could ask him to move back to Connecticut."

"Mother, I told you, I can't! He's building a wonderful life for himself there."

"How wonderful can it be if you're not there to share it?"

"What am I supposed to do? Move back to Iowa?"

"Of course not, don't be an idiot. You were miserable inside."

"Well, I don't want Tony to be miserable here, not finding a job, or only finding jobs that are nowhere near as good as what he's got at Wells."

"Angela, why do you make yourself miserable? That's my job, Dear."

"Thank you, Mother."

"Look, once and for all, what is preventing you from being with Tony?"

"You want a list?"

"Ugh. I give up, for now. I'll try again when it's time for your thirtieth."

"Thank you." I'm not sure if I'm thanking her for quitting, or for promising to try again.

After she leaves, I do start a list, well, a mental one. I'm not going to review the entire eight years. Just the most recent year.

-I rejected both of Tony's marriage proposals. The first because it had been a disastrous weekend and I thought he was only doing it since Mother put him up to it; the second because I thought he was overdoing it, making a statement, with a blimp and everything.

-After Tony accepted my proposal (yes, I had to make it, because I'd shattered Tony's confidence), I let my grandmother undermine our relationship.

-When my business was in a slump and I let Tony manage the budget, including my credit cards, I went behind his back and tried to buy a moo-cow creamer.

-When Tony seemed to have developed an allergy to me, his lips swelling up after we kissed, I assumed that he was scared of getting married, when I was the one who was scared. (And it was the glue on the wedding invitation envelopes anyway.)

-I got tired of Tony's competitiveness and temper, until I met his lookalike who was far too mellow for my taste.

-And, yes, I shared a bed with Mother when my bedroom was being remodeled. The worst part, Tony and I never did find the chance to sneak off and have a private weekend. The sexual tension got unbearable at times, in a different way than before. OK, I admit that sometimes I amped it up, to get what I wanted from Tony, whether it was an open jam jar or a winning basket. But I tried not to be too Ingridable, since that would've been too cruel, to myself as well as Tony.

-The Idaho, I mean Iowa, interlude was a series of mistakes, on both our parts. As I told Mother, this is what finally convinced me to give up. Tony and I both tried so hard, and it only made it worse.

The truth is that maybe we "needed Iowa," in the same way as we "needed Kathleen," to show us the cracks and flaws in our relationship. I love Tony dearly. I will probably never be able to feel that kind of love for anyone ever again. But you know, I am grateful that I had the chance to fall in love like that, truly and deeply, in every way. I'm a richer person for having known Tony. I don't regret the experience in the slightest, no matter what the pain. As I told Dr. Bellows five years ago, I've never been so happy and so sad.

It's like I never really felt things before Tony. But that doesn't mean I can open myself up again that much. Not yet. I need more time to heal. To go to the Hidden Hollow Motel, or wherever he's staying, if he did indeed try to celebrate our anniversary, would undo everything that's happened in the past month. And it would be a regression to Anthony & Ingrid, and I don't want that anymore. It's not enough. And it's too much.

And I don't think it'll be any easier a year from now. But, if he's still single and if he still wants Ingrid when our fiftieth rolls around, then, yes, I'll be there. But I'm not telling Mother that of course.

And, yes, I think Anthony will make a very handsome and sexy sixty-one-year-old.