in the kitchen i fill the kettle and plug it in . i would have completed that sentence , in the middle of the biggest crisis of my life . do you think you two might get serious in the future ? morgan nodded but made no move to follow . had it always been that way , she wondered suddenly ? `` once , but it could never work . '' he and ruth had been together almost forty years . his fingers curled into his hair . i drove back down kansas road at five miles an hour , feeling my way . 