HOPE STREET.

Judith Arnold.

To my sons.

ONE.

"SO, WE'RE NOT GOING to tell them," Curt said. His gaze remained fixed on the road ahead. Dusk spread a warm pink glaze over the asphalt, the forest of pine trees lining the road and the windshield of his BMW Z4. His "midlife crisis," Ellie had dubbed the coupe when he'd bought it last year. Not that either of them believed an expensive sports car was the solution to a crisis. But his daughters were grown and gone, and a man turned fifty only once in his life-if he was lucky enough to live that long.

He loved the car's snug c.o.c.kpit, the burled-wood dashboard and the upholstery's leather smell. Right now, however, the coupe seemed too small, too intimate. They should have taken Ellie's old Toyota. Maybe he would have been able to breathe in that car.

"We're not going to tell them," she confirmed. "We've already decided the girls are the first people we'll tell, and we aren't going to dump this on them over the phone. They'll be home for Thanksgiving. We'll discuss it with them then, face-to-face."

"And in the meantime, we're just supposed to pretend everything is fine."

"I think we can fake it for an evening, don't you?"

He sighed. They'd been faking it for a long time already, he supposed. He wasn't sure exactly when in the past few months he and Ellie had decided to get a divorce, at what point they'd crossed that line, at what moment they'd acknowledged that certain wounds just weren't going to heal. But the word divorce had finally invaded their conversations, and neither had flinched or backed off from it. They'd been moving in this direction for a long time, and now the destination was in sight.

So how the h.e.l.l were they supposed to get through dinner with Ellie's parents tonight? "It's Ellie's fiftieth birthday," his mother-in-law had pointed out. "Curt got himself that expensive hot rod when he turned fifty. The least you can do is let us take the two of you out for dinner to celebrate Ellie's milestone." She'd made a reservation at a historical inn twenty miles away, one of those quaint, pretty places that Curt and Ellie had always intended to check out but never had.

Curt got along with his in-laws-sometimes better than Ellie did. He was the Harvard Law School graduate who'd married their headstrong daughter. How could they not adore him?

But he sure as h.e.l.l didn't want to spend the evening with them, listening to them sing "Happy Birthday" to Ellie when he and she were already mulling over who should get custody of the s...o...b..ower and the china.

He could feel the tension wrapped around her like a silent hum as she sat in the scoop-shaped seat beside him. He didn't have to look at her to picture the tight line of her mouth, the clench of her jaw, but he glanced in her direction anyway. Her hands lay rigid in her lap, as if she was struggling not to curl them into fists. He could practically see her nostrils quiver with each breath she took.

Ever since she'd come home from Ghana, she'd looked...fantastic, d.a.m.n it. She'd lost weight while she was gone-not that she'd been fat, but she'd acc.u.mulated a little extra padding during the past few, awful years, and it had melted away beneath the African sun. Her profile was sleek now, her cheeks almost gaunt, making her eyes appear twice as big as before. She'd cut her hair short, but it had grown back a bit and now fell in a chin-length pageboy, the brown laced with strands of silver. No more of those reddish-blond highlights she used to have bleached into her tresses at the salon. He'd never been a big fan of that streaky hair coloring. Silver was more honest, more stripped down-like everything that remained of their life together.

She also dressed differently since returning from Africa, favoring shapeless, swirling outfits in bold patterns and neutral colors, fabrics that draped over her taut body and emphasized her slenderness. She'd abandoned the fancy jewelry she used to love-the diamond stud earrings, the tennis bracelet, all the glittery, expensive trinkets Curt had given her over the years. Tonight she had on simple gold hoop earrings and a necklace made of rough-hewn chunks of amber.

And her wedding band, along with the diamond eternity ring he'd given her as a tenth-anniversary present. If they were faking it, she needed to wear her rings.

He wore his wedding band, too. He'd removed it a month ago in a final concession to the inevitable. She hadn't been wearing hers when she'd arrived home from Ghana. He wondered exactly when she'd removed it, if she'd taken it off for a specific reason. He'd asked her more than once, and her refusal to offer him a straight answer was still eating at him.

Fake it, he reminded himself, pushing his anger away. Just for tonight. Get through this evening.

Pretending to be her devoted, loving husband for the time it took to eat dinner might just be the most costly birthday present he'd ever given her.

SHE KNEW CURT DIDN'T WANT to drive to this stupid inn for dinner. She didn't want to, either. But how did you deny your parents the pleasure of celebrating your fiftieth birthday? She couldn't have said, Curt and I don't feel like partying, Mom. We're getting a divorce.

They'd already agreed that their daughters would be the first people they informed of their decision. And with Jessie away at college and Katie working as an intern for one of the television networks in New York City-glamorous work, lousy pay, but it was a start-Ellie just couldn't break the news to the girls long-distance. It was the kind of thing parents ought to tell their children in person, so they could comfort and rea.s.sure them, hug them and wipe their tears.

"Should we have some small talk ready?" Curt asked. "Something we can tell your folks when they ask how everything is? Maybe we should rehea.r.s.e. Come up with a script."

"If we're putting on a show, you can sing that song from Evita," she suggested, allowing herself a slight smile. Curt often broke into a chorus of "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina," except that he always subst.i.tuted a more relevant phrase in place of Argentina. "Don't cry for me, Martha Stewart," he'd sung to the TV set when the domestic diva had faced her legal struggles. "Don't cry for me, burger patties," he would croon as he fired up the grill. "Don't cry for me, Kate and Jessie," he used to serenade his daughters when they were in high school and pestering him for bigger allowances and later curfews.

"If I sing, they'll kick us out of the restaurant."

"No, they won't. You have a lovely voice."

Curt shot her a quick glance, as if not quite believing she could have said something nice about him. She could think of plenty of valid compliments, though. He did have a beautiful voice, and he was a superb lawyer, and he was as handsome today as the evening he'd run into her on the campus green some thirty years ago, and invited her back to the apartment on Hope Street that he'd been sharing with his friend Steve, and poured her a gla.s.s of bourbon and a.s.sured her that she wasn't a disaster, even though everyone else who mattered had done their best to convince her that she was.

Along with the compliments, she could also say about Curt that he had made a major mistake-just as she had-and that some mistakes could not be overcome. No matter how hard you tried, no matter how willing you were to forgive, no matter how many sutures you used to close a wound, sometimes the scar was simply too ugly to bear.

"We don't have to rehea.r.s.e," she a.s.sured him, staring forward. He directed his attention back to the road, but when they stopped for a red light he looked at her again. She pretended his gaze didn't unsettle her. "My parents will ask you about work. You always have plenty to say about that. They'll ask me about work. I'll tell them it's fine. Then they'll ask about the girls. That ought to carry us through to dessert."

He nodded, then shifted gears when the light turned green. "The driveway should be coming up soon," he said.

She scrutinized the road, searching for the sign that would direct them to the inn. At another time-a few years ago, in a happier past-she would have been eager to dine at the landmark restaurant. It had been written up in tourist brochures and history books, a must-see for people in the area. She wondered what magic her parents had performed to get a dinner reservation on a Sat.u.r.day evening during the peak leaf season, when visitors from all over the country spilled into New England to admire the region's autumn foliage.

Even as a native New Englander, Ellie used to get excited about the leaves blazing with color each fall. This year, however, she couldn't get excited about anything. Not the autumn foliage. Not dinner at a famous inn. Not her fiftieth birthday.

The sky had faded to a deep blue by the time they found the driveway. Sunset leeched all the color from the scenery, turning the trees into silhouettes and shrubs into clouds of black resting along the ground. Up ahead, at the end of a winding drive, the inn sprawled grandly, two white-clapboard stories below a steeply peaked roof, with wings extending on either side. Lights designed to resemble gas lamps illuminated the slate walk from the parking lot to the pillared front porch, which was bathed in a welcoming glow from wrought-iron lamps flanking the paneled front door.

"Charming," Curt said dryly. He'd always been immune to old New England charm-"Old-ee," he called it, spoofing the many establishments in the Boston suburbs that featured the word Olde in their names. Ellie's parents loved "old-ee" things. The decor of their modest house was colonial, and every horizontal surface held "old-ee" knickknacks and collectibles. Her parents couldn't afford old things-genuine antiques-so they compensated with an abundance of "old-ee" dust collectors.

Curt parked the car, and Ellie climbed out before he could circle around to a.s.sist her. A serenade of late-season crickets greeted her as she straightened, and her lungs filled with the scent of pine needles and damp earth and wood-burning fireplaces. She adjusted the gauzy black jacket of her outfit, felt to make sure the clasp of her necklace was positioned at her nape, finger-combed her hair smooth-and ordered herself to stop fidgeting. The time for faking had arrived.

Curt locked the car, then reached for her hand and tucked it into the bend of his elbow-his own attempt to fake it. The wool of his suit jacket was smooth and soft against her palm, and his conservative silk tie was knotted tight against his throat. He hated having to dress up on the weekends-five days a week was more than enough, he insisted-but he'd been willing to costume himself appropriately for the role he had to play tonight: the doting husband of the birthday girl.

Ellie would play her role, too: the loving wife. In her bid for an Oscar, she let her hand rest on his sleeve in the crook of his arm and matched her steps to his as he escorted her up the walk to the inn's entrance.

She and Curt touched each other so rarely lately. Sometimes they seemed to go out of their way to avoid accidentally b.u.mping into each other at the kitchen sink or in the garage, or in bed. Either of them could have moved into one of the house's three other bedrooms, but they hadn't. Stubbornness, maybe. Habit. Whatever it was that kept them in the same bed, they'd learned how to leave a safe buffer of s.p.a.ce between their bodies on the king-size mattress.

A hostess in a colonial dress of pale blue topped with a frilly white pinafore greeted them as they entered the inn. The aromas of hearty food and pine logs burning in hearths surrounded them. Ellie's hand instinctively tightened around Curt's elbow. She wanted to comment on the delicious fragrances, the ancient patterned rug running the length of the entry hall, the elegant bra.s.s wall sconces and the dimly lit taproom to their right. Years ago she and Curt would have swapped their opinions about the inn, compared impressions, debated which artifacts were old and which were "old-ee." Now she simply stood beside him, clinging but trying not to, while he gave the hostess their name.

"Yes, of course," the hostess said, skimming the reservations book spread open on her desk and then smiling at them. Her blond curls were tucked under a quaint bonnet, but her makeup was decidedly twenty-first century. "Please follow me."

She led them past the taproom, past a large, bustling dining room and down another hall. "Jeez," Curt muttered, softly enough that only Ellie would hear him. "Where are they seating us? In the kitchen?"

"Maybe you have to bribe someone to get a good table," Ellie muttered back. "My parents would never have thought of that."

Around a corner and down another short hall, the hostess halted in front of a closed door. "Your party is waiting for you here," she said, rapping the door with her knuckles and then swinging it open.

Ellie realized how literally she'd meant party when a raucous chorus of "Surprise!" and "Happy birthday, Ellie!" exploded through the doorway, a barrage of cheers and hollers aimed at her. She staggered backward, but Curt stood behind her, blocking her escape and also preventing her from falling.

She twisted to glare at him; if he'd conspired with her parents behind her back, especially with their marriage in its death throes, she would never forgive him. But he looked as shocked as she felt, and he shook his head. "I swear, Ellie..." he whispered. He didn't have to say more. She knew he hadn't been in on this.

Sucking in a breath, she cautiously entered the room. In the crowd she spotted her parents, a few neighbors and coworkers, her brothers and sisters-in-law, college friends and-G.o.d help her-her daughters. Katie and Jessie, in dresses and high heels and nylons, grinned gleefully and lifted goblets of wine in Ellie's direction. Jessie was only twenty. Who had served her a gla.s.s of wine?

As if that mattered. As if anything mattered besides the fact that this room was filled with her loved ones and her husband stood at her back, and faking it would now force them to perform in front of a much larger audience than she'd ever expected.

CURT HATED SURPRISES. He wasn't a big fan of birthday parties, either. When his fiftieth birthday had approached last year, Ellie had asked if he wanted any sort of celebration, and he'd told her he'd be satisfied with his dream car. Despite its steep sticker price, she'd told him to go ahead and buy it. Big parties weren't exactly her thing, either, especially not in the past few years.

But there she was, clutching a champagne flute full of bubbly while her mother, some of Ellie's friends from work and Anna, her college roommate, cl.u.s.tered around her, all yammering at once. Anna had dated Curt's roommate Steve for a few years, long enough for Ellie and Curt to have found each other. By the time Curt and Steve had graduated, Steve and Anna were history. She'd gone on to marry a professor of film studies at some tiny college in New Hampshire-a pedantic bore, as far as Curt was concerned, but when the two couples got together he was a dutiful host and sat politely, nodding to indicate his fascination with the guy's lectures on Hitchc.o.c.k and G.o.dard. He'd always been so grateful to Anna for having enabled him to meet Ellie, he'd never really minded the old windbag's pontificating.

For some reason, he was still grateful. Even though their marriage was over, it had been wonderful for a whole lot of years. He had Anna to thank for those years.

He accepted a gla.s.s of Chivas neat from the bartender who'd set up shop in one corner of the room, and watched as Ellie was ushered over to a table draped in white linen and stacked high with gifts. Next to the table was a fireplace-not burning, thank G.o.d; with all the people in the room, a fire would have turned the s.p.a.ce into a sauna. Above the ornately carved mantel hung a curving satin banner with Happy 50th Birthday, Ellie! printed on it. Her mother's dress was a glittery gold number, and Anna's c.o.c.ktail dress was emerald green. In her gauzy black outfit, with her austere haircut and her large, soulful eyes, Ellie seemed out of place, even though she was the guest of honor.

Jessie sidled up to Curt, beaming like the sun in August. "So, what do you think, Dad? We pulled one over on you guys, huh?"

He managed a smile. In the past year, his younger daughter had turned into a woman, all curves and sophisticated airs. She looked even older with that winegla.s.s in her hand, but he wasn't going to get on her case about a few sips of Chardonnay. "You and Katie hatched this thing with Nana and Poppa?"

Her grin widening, she nodded. "Grandma and Grandpa were hoping to come, too, but with Grandpa's knee surgery, the doctors said they couldn't fly." Curt's parents had retired to Phoenix a few years ago, and joint by joint, his arthritic father was being transformed into the Six Million Dollar Man. "But they sent the coolest present."

"What?"

"You'll see," she said cryptically. "Actually, I think maybe Katie's and my present is even cooler."

"Your mother isn't going to open all those presents in front of everybody," Curt warned, eyeing Ellie from across the room. She was smiling bashfully, shaking her head as her mother gesticulated at the gift-wrapped packages heaped on the table. "This isn't like the birthday parties you used to have when you were kids, where everyone tears the paper and shrieks over each little Barbie outfit."

"What? No tearing paper and shrieking?" Jessie feigned horror. "Katie and I figured we'd truck all the presents back to the house, and Mom can open them tomorrow."

"Tomorrow? Why not later tonight?"

Jessie pressed her hand to her mouth, then giggled. "Oops. Well, act surprised when Mom opens her gift from Grandma and Grandpa. They reserved a room here at the inn for you two for tonight. Katie and I put together a bag full of toiletries for you, too, so you don't have to go home to get stuff. You can just go upstairs after dinner and spend the night. The rooms here are supposed to be tres romantic."

Oh, Christ. Just what Curt and Ellie needed-a tres romantic room at the old-ee inn for the night. How much had his parents splurged on that little goodie? Rooms at inns like this didn't come cheap, especially during leaf season.

He eyed Ellie again, admiring her graceful posture, the way she held her head, her shoulders. She could have been a dancer, he thought. Her long legs and arms, her slim hips-especially now, the new, streamlined version of Ellie, as slender as she'd been in college-and her posture all gave her the lissome stance of a prima ballerina.

If the room at the inn was already paid for...what the heck. They weren't divorced yet. They could make the best of it. Why let his parents' generosity go to waste?

It had been so long since he'd made love with Ellie. So long. So much anger, so much penance, the months she'd been away...He'd made his peace with the idea of divorcing her. But he wasn't sure he'd quite accepted the prospect of never having s.e.x with her again.

Tonight, for old time's sake, because at this time of year his parents must have gone through an enormous effort to reserve a tres romantic room for them...he could give Ellie a birthday night to remember. A night to remember him by. A farewell...whatever.

"Since you've spilled the beans about Grandma and Grandpa's present, how about yours and Katie's?"

"You want to know?" Jessie's eyes sparkled. They were hazel, like his, and her hair was a few shades lighter than his pale brown, but as straight as her mother's. She was going to break hearts someday, he thought. She'd probably already broken a few.

"I want to know," he confirmed.

"It's a DVD. We videotaped people talking about Mom, grabbed a bunch of photos and home movies and made a little doc.u.mentary about Mom's life. Katie edited it at work. They let her use the editing room there."

"G.o.d, you two are creative."

"Yes, Dad," Jessie deadpanned. "We're beyond brilliant. I wonder whose genes we have to thank for that."

"Your mother's," Curt said, not having to think about it. Ellie was the imaginative one, the parent with instant access to her emotions. She was the one who'd taught the girls to view the world in a variety of ways, to see it in all its squalor and splendor. He knew his business, knew how to make a lot of money, knew how to argue and negotiate and recite case law. But Ellie knew how to paint the world with color.

One long, special night with Ellie, he thought, watching as she circled the room, pausing to chat with her sister-in-law, with Bill and Marlene from across the street, with her aunt Louisa. One night in a tres romantic room with her. Where was the harm in it?

They could get back to planning their divorce tomorrow.

SHE HADN'T REALIZED HOW hard faking it would be.

All these people, so happy for her, happy that she'd enjoyed fifty years of living, happy that she'd returned home after six months in Africa with a new sense of purpose, a new way of approaching the world. Happy that she was no longer flailing, no longer brooding and moping and staggering around, wallowing in so much grief people were afraid to approach her.

Everyone was so happy that she and Curt had emerged from the far side of h.e.l.l and were still together.

"...And I was saying, my G.o.d, how can she be fifty? She looks younger than me!"

"...Now, tell me, Katie, is Manhattan full of eligible bachelors?"

"...I always say, we shouldn't just get together for sad occasions. When was the last time I saw you? Whose funeral? We need more parties...."

Voices churned around her in an atonal chorus. She sipped her champagne, remembering much too vividly that the funeral where she'd last seen her aunt Louisa had been Peter's. One more sip and she realized she hated champagne. She realized, as well, that there was no tactful way for her to extricate herself from the group of well-wishers gathered around her. Finally, her smile causing her cheeks to cramp, she said, "I'll be right back," and made a break for the bar.

The bartender had three bottles of beer lined up on display, one premium, one regular and one light. She still missed the thick, sour beer she'd grown accustomed to in k.u.masi. American beers tasted bland in comparison. She asked for a gla.s.s of red wine.

"For the lady of the hour," the bartender said, then winked. He was a young fellow with a thick mustache and broad shoulders, and for a moment she wondered whether that wink meant he was flirting with her. She had her wedding ring on, and if he knew she was the birthday girl, he also undoubtedly knew she was here with her husband, her parents and her daughters. Besides which, she was fifty years old. Why would a buff stud like him be flirting with her?

She felt a hand on her shoulder, warm and familiar, almost possessive. "How are you doing?" she asked Curt, not meeting his eyes. "Holding up okay?"

"Yeah." He squeezed her shoulder gently, then released her and gave the bartender a brisk nod, as if to say, Save your moves for someone else. She's mine.

For tonight, for as long as this party lasted and they had to keep faking it, she was indeed his. If he felt the need to signal the bartender by putting his arm around Ellie, maybe she hadn't been crazy to think the young man had been coming on to her.

"Have you checked out your presents?" Curt asked as he led her away from the bar. His gla.s.s held a golden liquid-Scotch, she a.s.sumed. She clasped the stem of her wine goblet and shook her head to dismiss a waiter approaching with a tray of canapes.

"My mother gave me a quick tour of the packages. What am I going to do with all that stuff?"

"Write a lot of thank-you notes," he suggested. "I've got to give you a heads-up, Ellie. If you're annoyed at your parents for organizing this bash with the girls, you'll be even more annoyed at my parents for their gift."

Curiosity twitched awake inside her. "What did they give me?"

Curt looked pained. "A night here at the inn, with me. In a room that, according to Jessie, is tres romantic."

She grimaced. She and Curt had learned to share their house without arguing, without sniping-basically without engaging each other any more than they had to. But there was nothing romantic about the Dutch Colonial they'd lived in for more than twenty years. Nostalgia dwelled within the walls, memories marked each room, but all the romance that had once electrified the place must have escaped through the cracks and screen windows, because not a hint of it remained inside the house.

"We can stay in the room a couple of hours and then sneak home," she suggested.

"The girls are spending the night at the house. They'd know if we came home."

"Then we could tell them we came home because we wanted to spend a little more time with them before they went back to college and New York."

He scowled and shook his head. "The girls would be really p.i.s.sed if we did that. They think my parents are the coolest people in the world for booking this room for us."