"Talk and eat," Mary agreed with a nod now that she was sitting. "There are things I can do reasonably well." She refused to entertain the concept that he didn't want to be with her. She knew only that she could lie happily beside him in complete silence for the rest of her life and have it be enough. Perhaps for him what they had had was only physical, but for Mary it was the first time she'd felt something beyond that with a man.

"I don't know what there is to know about me that I haven't told you before," Mary considered.