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And now, she was expecting another child.

He hoped it would bring them closer to each other, but it drove them even further apart. She was constantly sick, day and night. She took to her bed and stayed there most of the time. She was in bed all through the spring, and only got up briefly in the afternoons to take Reed to the park. Her illness was yet another way of shutting Andy out.

They dined in silence at night, and the only sounds in the apartment once Andy got home, were Reed's chatterings. Andy and Kate rarely spoke to each other anymore. And in June, Kate saw in the newspaper that Joe had gotten engaged. She called to congratulate him, and found he was in Paris. He never called her anymore. At twenty-nine, she felt as though her life was over. She was married to a man she felt nothing for, was having a child she didn't want, and had lost the only man she'd ever loved. The baby was due in September, and Kate didn't seem to care. The only joys in her life were her son, and her memories of Joe.

It was Andy who finally came to her, just before their second child was born. She was lying on her bed, reading late at night, Reed was in bed next to her, sound asleep. He had turned two in March, and was a beautiful, loving child. She looked up when she saw Andy come into the room. Looking at him now was like seeing a stranger. It was hard to imagine they'd ever been close or thought they were in love, or were even friends.

“How do you feel?” he asked, sitting next to her on the bed. It was the closest they'd been to each other in eight months. It was hard to believe it had been that way between them for almost two years. The only decent time they'd ever shared was their first year of marriage, before he left for Germany and Joe came back."

"“I feel large,” she smiled. Talking to him was like talking to a distant friend, someone you had met years before and hadn't seen in a long time.

“I thought you'd like to know. I'm moving out after the baby comes.” He had made the decision weeks before, and rented an apartment that afternoon. He couldn't live that way anymore. Anything they'd ever shared or dreamed had long since died. And he knew now that he could no longer keep her like a bird in a cage. Her spirit had long since flown. The victory he had won over Joe was meaningless, he knew now. Kate had never been Andy's to lose. She was always Joe's.

“Why are you moving out?” she asked quietly, putting her book down.

“Why stay? You were right. It was a mistake. I'm sorry I got you pregnant on New Year's Eve. This complicates things for you.”

“Destiny, I guess. That word again.” It was the thing that made people come and go, or stay, or wish they could, and not make the right decision when they should. Chance. “The baby will be good for Reed,” she said quietly. “Where are you going?” It was like asking a fellow traveler on a train, not a man she had once loved. She was no longer sure she ever had. Probably not. They had been better as friends. She had just been so heartbroken after she left Joe. But they had both paid a high price for what they'd done.

“I should have listened to you two years ago,” he said. She nodded and said nothing. The two years he'd taken to agree to a divorce had cost her Joe. She wondered if he was married yet. The papers hadn't said, only that he'd gotten engaged several months before. And she had to respect that now. It was too late for them. And certainly for her, she felt. Andy had wasted her life, and destroyed her dreams. They belonged now to the woman who was going to marry Joe. And Kate had none.

“You were probably right to try,” she said to Andy, trying to be fair. But she had been too much in love with Joe to even consider it. The marriage to Andy had ended the moment she saw Joe again.

“Go back to him, Kate,” he said softly, looking like the friend he had once been as she watched his eyes. “I've never understood what you two had, or why, but whatever it is, it's powerful for both of you, you deserve to have it, if you want it that much.” She had all but died when he left. There was nothing left. She felt dead inside. “Tell him you're free now. He has a right to know.” Andy had spent two years feeling guilty over the lies he'd told Joe, particularly once he saw that Kate had closed all doors to him. But he had no idea how to undo the damage he had done to her, in Joe's eyes. And he didn't have the courage to tell Kate. But as much as she and Joe loved each other, or had, Andy suspected Joe would forgive her anything.

“He's engaged to someone else,” she said with somber eyes.

“So what?” Andy smiled. “We were married when he came back. If he loves you, he'll want you now, no matter what.”

“Is that how it works?” She smiled back at Andy for the first time in a long time. For two years, he had been her jailer and nothing more. Maybe now, in freeing her, they could at least be friends again.