Excerpt from The Pilot's Wife by Anita Shreve, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

And then she moved from shock to grief the way she might enter another room.

The images assaulted her. The feeling of Jack's breath at the top of her spine, as though he were whispering to her bones. The sliding sensation against her mouth when he gave her a quick kiss as he went off to work. The drape of his arm around Mattie after her last field hockey game, when Mattie was sticky and sweaty and crying because her team had lost eight-zip. The pale skin on the inside of Jack's arms. The slightly pitted skin between his shoulder blades, a legacy of adolescence. The odd tenderness of his feet, the way he couldn't walk along a beach without sneakers. The warmth of him always, even on the coldest of nights, as though his inner furnace burned extravagantly. The images pushed and jostled and competed rudely with each other for space. She tried to stop them, but she couldn't.

The man from the union stood at the sink and watched her. He didn't move.

"I loved him," she said when she could speak.

She got up and ripped a sheet of paper towel from its holder. She blew her nose. She felt a momentary bewilderment of tenses. She wondered if time were opening up an envelope and would swallow her---for a day or a week or a month or possibly forever.

"I know," said Robert.

"Are you married?" she asked, sitting down again.

He put his hands in the pockets of his trousers and jiggled the change there. He had on gray suit trousers. Jack hardly ever wore a suit. Like many men who wore a uniform to work, he had never been a particularly good dresser.

"No," he said. "I'm divorced."

"Do you have children?"

"Two boys. Nine and six."

"Do they live with you?"

"With my wife in Alexandria. Ex-wife."

"Do you see them much?"

"I try."

"Why did you get divorced?"

"I stopped drinking," he said.

He said this matter-of-factly, without explanation. She wasn't sure she understood. She blew her nose again.

"I have to call the school," she said. "I'm a teacher."

"That can wait," he said. "No one will be there anyway. No one is awake yet." He looked at his watch.

"Tell me about your job," she said.

"There isn't a lot to tell. It's mostly public relations."

"How many of these things have you had to do?" she asked.

"Things?"

"Crashes," she said. "Crashes."

He was silent for a minute.

"Five," he said finally. "Five major ones."

"Five?"

"And four smaller ones."

"Tell me about them," she said.

He glanced out the window. Thirty seconds passed. Maybe a minute. Again she sensed that he was making judgments, decisions.

"Once I got to the widow's house," he said, "and I found her in bed with another man."

"Where was this?"

"Westport. Connecticut."

"What happened?"

"The wife came down in a robe, and I told her, and then the man got dressed and came down. He was a neighbor. And then he and I stood in the woman's kitchen and watched her collapse. It was a mess."

"Did you know him?" Kathryn asked. "My husband?"

"No," he said. "I'm sorry."

"He was older than you."

"I know."

"What else did they tell you about him?"

"Eleven years with Vision. Before that, Santa Fe, five years. Before that, Teterboro, two years. Two years Vietnam, DC-3 gunships. Born in Boston. College, Holy Cross. One child, a daughter, fifteen. A wife."

He thought a minute.

"Tall," he said. "Six-four? Fit."

She nodded.

"Good record. Excellent record, actually."

He scratched the back of one hand with the other.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry I know these facts about your husband yet didn't know him at all."

© 1999 by Anita Shreve