and Janie was in bed. The plan was to sleep, but she had napped too late in the day. Her flu seemed to be dissipating; she had been only intermittently feverish that day. She’d had enough energy to get up and feed the kids leftover macaroni and cheese for dinner. A thought came to her as she lay there unable to sleep. She would get up and e-mail Jake, see what he was up to. A moment later she was embarrassed. She had forgotten that she and Jake no longer spoke, had no relationship at all, not even priest and parishioner. Why should it embarrass her, this momentary forgetting of the status of things? It was just a tiny lapse, never spoken aloud, with no one to see the stinging blush that crept up her neck. How had she come to feel so strongly for a man—a celibate man, no less—that even after three months of radio silence, she could still idly consider contacting? Had her instincts become so tangled and short-circuited that she would subject herself to such a gaffe? Was the damage permanent?
