How could I mess things up so badly? I wanted everything perfect when Jackson came to dinner. A wild, atavistic urge to feed a man came over me. Must’ve been straight down from a grandmother I’d never met; from back in the times when a woman caught herself a productive male or perished. My dinner would be spectacular. A mating dance to end all mating dances. Intimate, with candles and wildflowers and wine. It would fill him, satiate him, make him mellow and tranquil and putty in my hands. I’d decided this was the evening I would mention moving back to Ann Arbor.

The storm, when it hit, was wild, but brief, the air crystalline clear afterward. The evening promised to be one of those May times when the world smells like every flower in the whole spectrum of flowers, and when the late golden sun is thick enough to roll in. There wasn’t a cloud left in the sky by dinnertime; a great evening for eating on the deck. But I was conflicted—eat inside or out? Inside would be cozier. Outside restful—but with too much demanding our attention: the lake, the birds, the beaver out there mocking me.

So … inside. I spread a yellow striped cloth on the little table in my kitchen nook. Blue tapers in crystal holders … well … maybe not real crystal. Blue cloth napkins beside my burgundy plates. Colorful. Lovely. I planned to serve tomatoes with mozzarella I’d picked up at Cherry Street Market; fresh basil and olive oil on top of the luscious little beauties. I prepared bruschetta with bits of garlic and roasted red pepper. There would be a risotto with freshly grated pecorino cheese, peas, and morels. And tiny lamb chops with a salad of arugula, ceci beans, and blue cheese. I felt like Martha Stewart on steroids, dashing about in my kitchen, gathering my wares, weaving my web. I could feel the bluebirds sitting on my shoulders, singing. There are days when you know nothing could possibly go wrong—until it does.

The tomatoes and basil were fine. The bruschetta burned in the oven. But what could that matter, with the pleasures yet to come? The risotto didn’t absorb the chicken broth—it remained a kind of soup. I let it rest until Jackson got there, thinking it was sure to set up. It only needed time to be perfect.

Jackson arrived with his arms filled with more of his manuscript—pages and pages of handwritten notes. I put Sorrow out on the screened porch with a mammoth stack of dog bones, hoping he would eat and go to sleep.

My hair was done—as well as I ever do it: left long and wild and thick. I had swiped color on my cheeks, pink lipstick over my mouth, and added a smudge of gray to my eyelids. I had dressed in a deep pink silk shirt and slinky black pants. I even wore low backless heels. At my neck I draped silver chains, and stuck silver hoops in my ears. If I said so myself, I looked more Ann Arbor than northern Michigan.

In the doorway Jackson bent to peck at both my cheeks. I hugged him awkwardly—all that paper between us.

“Something’s burning,” he said after dumping his paper on the living room desk and turning to stick his nose in the air.

I assured him it was only the bread and that I had a wonderful dinner planned for us.

“I’m assuming you’ve got my work done? What I gave you before?”

I nodded and pointed to a stack of sheets on the counter, with a freshly burned disk sitting on top.

“Good.” He fingered the sheets of his manuscript then lifted the first page and began to read to me.

Since I’d already read it once, I only half listened as I stirred my risotto and put the lamb chops into a pan to sear along with garlic, olive oil, and pepper. Jackson settled into a living room chair as I poured the white wine—not Santa Margherita—and brought a glass to him. He waved for me to set the glass on the table and continued to read, stopping only to give a cluck of admiration from time to time.

The manuscript came with him as he followed me around in the kitchen. He read on until I took the stack of papers from his hands and set it on the counter. For that I got a pained look, his dark eyes accusing me of ingratitude.

“Dinner,” I said, and led him to the table, where I’d put him next to me, not across.

The tomatoes were wonderful.

“Any bread?” he asked and I had to shake my head, not bringing up the bruschetta I’d burned.

“Remember that time you forgot to pick up the roast beef at the butcher’s when we were having all those people over?” He snickered and shook a finger at me. “God, but that was funny. How you scrounged up a vegetarian dinner only to discover most of that Indian delegation weren’t meat eaters anyway. Very, very lucky.”

I nodded.

“And the time when you cooked your first turkey and forgot to take the giblets bag out?” He took another tomato from the pretty Chinese plate I’d set them on. “But you came around—eventually. We had some wonderful meals. I like to think I had something to do with your education.” His lips smacked together.

I smiled and took a deep breath. “I’ve been thinking about our life in Ann Arbor.”

“It wasn’t all bad, was it?” He smiled indulgently and patted my hand. “Now be honest. We made a good couple.”

“Yes, well …” A little irritation settled deep in my brain.

I poured the rice out onto his plate. It spread and then it spread some more. It reached the edge of his dish and kept going as he tried to catch it with his fingers. Fortunately, he laughed.

We ate the rice with spoons. The salad was flat. Lamp chops were inedible—tough and cooked all the way through. I had no dessert.

I suggested we take our wine out to the deck after the meal. He looked longingly over at his manuscript and then at me, but my scowl stopped him.

We set our deck chairs to face the lake. There was no breeze. It was the quiet time of evening when the birds settled into their nests with a last weak riffle of sound. The sun made long horns of gold across the surface of the water.

“I brought my things,” Jackson said quietly and turned his head slowly to give me an anticipatory look.

I smiled, then launched into the subject sitting like a lump between us.

“You know, Jackson, I’ve been thinking about moving back to Ann Arbor,” I said.

He shrugged and said nothing.

“I mean,” I went on, “I’ve been up here for over three years now. I think I miss working at the newspaper. All of that urgency every day.”

“I can see where you’d miss it. Still, it is beautiful here. Quiet. Perfect for a writing getaway. I think I’ve envied you this.”

“Yeah, well, I was thinking I could keep this place. A weekend retreat. Or if one of us has to write …”

“Nice of you to include me.”

“What I was suggesting …”

“Could I have more wine?” He held his glass in the air. I hesitated then went in and brought the bottle out with me.

I didn’t know why I was tongue-tied. Maybe because I felt I was doing too much of the work and he just wasn’t getting it.

“This would be a great place for me to come work on my next book,” he said, glass turning in his hands. “I’d pay you rent, of course.”

“No, what I meant …”

“Give you a little income. You’d need an apartment. Maybe a condo. Could you swing it without selling this place?”

I shook my head hard. “I don’t …”

“But of course you could rent in AA.”

I stopped trying. He wasn’t getting it or he didn’t want to understand. Maybe I was pushing too hard; scaring him. Jackson could be a timid and frightened man when cornered. He needed time to adjust to the changes between us. I looked over at his slightly worn profile and felt a rush of love.

When I got up to bend and kiss him, he put his arms out and held me. It didn’t take long to find our way back to my bedroom and spend the rest of the night without talking.

After we’d made love, I slept as I hadn’t slept in days. Some old admonition from dead family women made me feel safer, having a man in the house; a knight in shining armor, who would leap up and fight off all intruders with his trusty lance.