Carl thinks that his wife Lucy tells him everything, until he discovers her secret daily habit.

She has arranged a part of her life away from him and gone swimming in it. Patricia plays the same honky-tonk album over and over, while worrying that she’ll never become any less young and heedless, any more willing to get down to what her husband calls “the things of life”.

Elizabeth has an orderly existence up to the day she meets Richard: a slightly wrecked married man on the fringes of middle age who holds her hand as if it is an eggshell. This sparkling story collection from the adored Laurie Colwin explores love, longing and all we can never know about each other.

A W&N Essential.