"There's something about being where the action is," he tried to explain. "Fax machines are great, and E-mail, and conference calls, and Federal Express, but those don't put me where it's at."

A flight attendant passed, closing overhead bins and checking seat belts. Ben waited until she moved on, then said softly, "When you were in med school and doing your residency, we were in the city, so I had all that. Same when Dougie was born. Then we moved to Tucker, and I lost it."

Angie felt a thudding deep inside. "Are you saying you want to move back to the city?"

He looked up the aisle forlorny. "I'm saying I miss it. And if there were any way we could arrange it yes, I'd move back." He shot her a quick glance before deflecting his gaze to her hand. He brushed her wedding band. "But there's your practice."

The thudding inside her picked up. After two months in which certain basic aspects of her life had been turned upside down, another loomed.

"Your career isn't portable like mine is," Ben reasoned, playing devil's advocate to his own thoughts. "You're established in Tucker.

You know the people You like the people."

"Don't you?" she asked in dismay.

"Yes. Definitely. They are really nice people. They're kind.

They're friendly. Once they get to know you, they'd give you the shirt off their back."

He grew still when the flight attendant started talking about emergency measures.

Angie leaned closer. "It's more than just the people. It's the way of life. It's the ease.

The slower pace. The peacefulness."

"If I could have those things and intellectual stimulation, I'd be in heaven."

"Maybe there's another solution. Montpelier's not far away. Could you tie up with a newspaper there?"

He shot her a telling look. "The Cazette isn't exactly the Times."

"What about teaching? You could go to UVM, or I Bennington, or Dartmouth. There'd be plenty of intellectual stimulation at any of those places."

"Maybe," he admitted, though skeptically. "If they'd want a cartoonist on their staff."

"Not any old cartoonist. A prize-winning political cartoonist. You're tops in your field. If they don't want an entire course devoted to it, what about a series of seminars? You could coordinate with an art department. Or better still, with political science."

"Maybe," he said again.

The flight attendant had taken her seat. The plane pushed back from the jetway.

"What if I were to commute to New York?" he asked.

Her mind buzzed. Three-hundred and thirty-some miles. Five hours without traffic, upward of seven hours with. "Uh . . ."

The plane moved forward.

"What if I spent three days a week there?"

She swallowed. Three days a week when she wouldn't see him at all? A bachelor pad in New York? Evenings doing God only knew what with God only knew who? "Sounds kind of like a separation," she said uneasily.

He looked her in the eye and spoke with the quiet assurance that she had always loved.

"That's not what I mean at all. Especially after this weekend. All I'm doing is trying to think up ways to preserve your practice, my mental health, and our marriage at the same time. Three days a week might do it. Three days every other week might do it. Three days once a month might do it. I won't know until I try."

She wanted to say that it wouldn't work, that it would break up their marriage for sure.

Except that many husbands traveled on business. Their wives got used to it. And it wasn't as if she'd be doing nothing the whole time he was away.

Besides, she knew he was restless. That was what Nora Eaton had been aboutthat, and a frustration that Angie had turned a deaf ear to. But she wanted to think she could learn from her mistakes. She wanted to think she could grow.

So, rational creature that she was, she said, "I could live with three days once a month."

The plane bounced over a seam in the tarmac and rolled on.

"Would you join me for a couple of days before and after?" Ben asked.

"I could." Rational creature that she was, she went a step beyond.

"Or I could look for a job closer to the city."

Ben stared at her. "You'd consider doing that9" "If it was the only way this would work."

"You'd leave Tucker?"

"You left New York for me once."

The pilot announced that they were second in line for takeoff.

"That was different, Angie. I can work anywhere. Youyou have a successful practice in Tucker. You'd have to start over."

"Not completely. I'd have you. And my skills and my reputation. And Dougie, for as little or as long as he isn't at school." She smirked.

gI'd also have my mother, and my brother and his wife and their five kids, and your mother, and your sister and her significant other, and your aunt Tillie."

"On second thought," Ben hedged, only half in jest.

"Why don't I look," Angie suggested. ill'll put out feelers to doctors I know in the New York area. If there's an opening in a small hospital in one of the suburbs, or with a group in the country north of the city, it might be interesting."

"You'd really do that?"

The plane turned onto the runway and waited.

Angie thought about it. "A pediatrician's practice is, by definition, transient.

Children grow up and move on. New ones come along."

"But you love your families."