Edge

the ribs, laughing again. Setting down the bundles, I gripped her hard. Our lips met and kissed for a lengthy moment.
    “So the project finished up early?” I noted that she glanced at herself in the mirror and straightened her dark wiry hair. She hadn’t been expecting me home until tomorrow. She usually got dolled up for my arrival after I’d been away. This was one of the things I loved about her. I hadn’t called because I didn’t want her to go to any trouble and because I liked to surprise her—like this, as well as for birthdays and anniversaries; our fifteenth was coming up in two weeks.
    “What happened to your head?”
    “I’m a klutz. You know that. Crawling around in a construction site.”
    “Hardhat,” she admonished.
    “I usually do.” I asked, “Are your mom and dad still coming this weekend?”
    “Yep. With Oscar.”
    “Who?”
    “Their dog.”
    “Did I know they got a dog?” I asked. I honestly couldn’t remember.
    “They mentioned it.”
    “What kind?”
    “A pick-a-poo or something. I don’t know. A corga-doodle.”
    I looked around. “The boys?”
    “Jeremy’s in his room, on the phone with your brother. Sam’s in bed. I’ll make you some supper.”
    “A sandwich, maybe. Some wine. A big glass of wine.”
    “Come on.” Peggy stowed the luggage in the hallway I’d been meaning to retile, ever since a bathroom pipe committed suicide a month ago. She led me into the kitchen and dug in the refrigerator. Before she started assembling the food she dimmed the lights and lit several candles.
    She poured a French Chardonnay, a Côte d’Or, for both of us.
    We touched glasses.
    “How long you home for?”
    “Four days.”
    “Really!” She stepped forward, pressed her entire body against mine and kissed me hard, her hand sliding down my back and pausing in the exact spot where my holster had been only a few hours before.
    After a moment or two, when she stepped back, I said, “Did I mention I’m home for five days?”
    “What do I have to do to make it a week?” she whispered, lips against my ear.
    I smiled, though even with Peggy I wasn’t the best smiler in the world.
    A few more kisses and when she finally escaped from my arms I said, “Look what I found.” I stepped into the hall, grabbed the shopping bag and pulled out the game that had been delivered on Saturday. I unwrapped it and set the box between us.
    “Oh, my . . .” Peggy isn’t the board game aficionado that I am but since there are more games inthe house than books she’s become something of an expert by osmosis. “Is that what I think it is?”
    “An original.”
    We were looking down at a first edition of Candy Land, the simplest and arguably the most popular of all children’s board games. One I had grown up playing with my brothers and our friends. You draw cards and move your pieces around a landscape that includes a chocolate swamp and a gumdrop mountain.
    “Jer’s too old, I’d guess. But Sammy’ll like it.”
    “No, with you, Jeremy will play.”
    I realized she was right.
    “Now, go sit and relax,” Peggy told me. Then the smile faded. I was sized up. “You working out or something and not telling me? You’ve lost weight.”
    “No good fast food where they sent me.”
    “Hm.”
    As she pulled open the refrigerator door, I walked into the den. I eased into my wheezing armchair, surrounded by the 121 games on the shelves. A thought occurred to me, a thought directed to one of my recent principals:
    You’re more right than you know, Joanne. It’s not impossible to have the two lives. The public, the private. The dark, the light. The madness, the dear sanity.
    But that balancing act takes so very much work. Superhuman, it sometimes seems.
    You have to force aside every memory and thought of your other life, your life with your loved ones when they pop into your head. If you don’t, the distraction could be fatal.
    You have to accept the loneliness of a secret life.Like the one I live four or five days at a time, or more, on the road, in safe houses and in the Alexandria town house, which the government subsidizes so I can be on call, near the office. Even though it’s near my beloved gaming club, even though it’s filled with some of the favorite games in my collection, even though it’s decorated with certificates and commendations I’ve received from the Diplomatic Service and from my present organization, it’s essentially an empty place, smelling of cardboard