Odd, she thought, how intensely you knew a person, or thought you did, when you were in love- soaked, drenched in love- only to discover later that perhaps you didn't know that person quite as well as you had imagined. Or weren't quite as well known as you had imagined to be.

In the beginning, a lover drank in every word and gesture and then tried to hold on to that intensity for as long as possible. But inevitably, if two people were together long enough, that intensity had to wane. It was the way people worked, with the need to evolve from being sick with love to making a life with someone who was also changing, evolving.