In the weeks after he took me from behind in the middle of the night, we went back to normal. The episode seemed like a pleasurable blip in a pleasurable routine.

We were meeting at the Mt. Sinai fundraiser. It was a cutting day. When he arrived at the fundraiser, he’d smell of rubbing alcohol and cologne if he’d put some on, fresh coffee grounds and cut grass if he hadn’t. He’d touch my shoulder. He’d run his finger along the edge of my strapless gown. At home, we’d barely make it in the door before he’d strip me naked and take me. Yes, it was predictable. Some things were worth predicting.

I crawled into the back of the car where my younger brother, Colin, waited. He was an engineer who’d been inspired to go to college after I’d found a way to go to med school, and he’d moved to New York for a job just as I was settling in. The education had done nothing to tamp his roguish ways.

“You look nice,” he said when I slid in next to him. He flicked one of my dangling earrings.

“You do too.” I straightened his black bow tie as the limo coasted toward the museum.

He shooed my hand away. “Thanks for the plus one.”

“Try to keep off the ladies.”

“What’s the fun in that when I have to watch your husband with his hands all over you?”

“Stop it.”

“You two are so in love it makes me sick.”

I looked away, trying to hide my silent laughter. “What happened to you and that woman? The painter? She seemed nice.”

“She wanted things.”

“Things?”

“Promises. Commitments. Me. I have things I’m doing. I can’t get sidetracked by a pretty face.” He tapped his knee for a second. “Or all the other things. Whatever. How’s the practice coming?”

“Not bad,” I said. “Better.”

“You like it?”

“I love it. We’re here. Put your jacket on.”

The event took place in a ballroom lined with Regency-era portraits and heavy drapery. I plucked a champagne flute from a server’s silver tray and Colin did the same.

“This is lovely.” He scanned the room like a cheetah selecting the weakest in the herd.

“Behave.”

“Oh, your friend Jenn is here. I like her,” he purred.

I elbowed him as Jenn saw us and headed over. She was awkward in heels and her fat black glasses always slid down her nose, but her smile was a beacon of light against her brown skin. We greeted each other, and she swapped her empty flute for a full one.

“Easy there, tiger,” Colin said.

Jenn took no shit, and she was a terrible flirt. “I’m grown, but thank you.”

“He’s on the make,” I offered.

“Good luck with that.” She tipped her glass to him, and he responded with a clink. “Ronin’s here,” she said to me.

“Where is he?” I craned my neck. “He sent me some referrals. I owe him a drink.”

I saw him before the last word was out of my mouth, but he already had a drink in his hand. He wedged his way through the crowd toward us.

“What are you doing here?” I asked as he kissed my cheek.

“Business.”

“Obviously,” Jenn said. “No one’s here for the food.”

“Thank you for the referrals,” I said. “I owe you a drink.”

“Open bar doesn’t count.”

We were talking about something unimportant when Ronin put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me to him, but we were laughing.

“Blah blah,” Colin complained. “Caden’s here.”

He crossed the room to my husband, whose eyes were on me. Caden wore a deep navy suit and a gold tie. His cufflinks sparkled, and his hair was combed off his face. The fact that he hadn’t shaved contrasted the crispness of the suit against the animal body inside it.

We went quiet. He wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at Ronin.

Ronin removed his arm from my shoulders.

Colin interrupted the gaze by shaking my husband’s hand and making some sort of wisecrack he must have found hilarious.

Caden, not as much. He’d turned his attention back to me.

“Girl. He looks like he wants to eat you alive,” Jenn said into her glass.

I turned to Ronin so I could blame him, but he was gone. Caden maneuvered to us.

“My dad never looked at my mom like that,” Jenn continued.

Before I could offer a snappy answer, Caden found us and kissed Jenn on the cheek. He kissed my cheek in the same platonic way, then looked behind him, but no one was there.

“Where’s Colin?” I asked.

“Bar.”

When I turned to scan the bar for my brother, I leaned into Caden a little. We had a pattern. A rhythm to our interactions. The shape of the space between us, laid out over the time together, was as predictable as the phases of the moon, and his touch always came when expected.

But when we looked at Colin as he tried to charm a young lady in a gold dress, Caden didn’t lean in when I did. He didn’t put his hand on my back. When Bob Abramson found me and said he wanted me to meet someone, my husband didn’t take my hand. When Wilhelmina, the head cardiac nurse, her hair braided into long, neat rows, gave me a kiss and asked how I was handling my husband’s hours, Caden didn’t come close to me and brush his thumb between my shoulder blades. When we all sat down for a presentation about the hospital’s goals, he kept his hands folded in his lap.

When he released his hands and placed them on his knees, I put my left hand over his right. He patted it, smiled at me, and slipped it away before looking behind him again.

I thought he was in a bad mood.

What else could it be?