In January, a missing creeps into her life like the winter cold. She still enjoys her days, climbing mountains, sorting books, firing kick-ass emails to clients. And she isn't lonely: friends speak to her from screens and across tables whenever she reaches out. But there's a nameless absence that feels like a deprivation, as though she's lost something along the way.
 
In February, he smiles at her from afar, from the health food aisle in the supermarket, a distance she must travel. Immediately, she's alert, aroused. Traveling excites her. Who will be the first to advance? She denies it with her heart, her mind, her feminist truths, but once he pours her a glass of pinot noir in the café next door, she wonders whether what she's been missing in her life could be a man.
 
In March, she feels whimsical, lost in the complicated world of sex. She seems to have returned to that experimental stage of youth in which one wants to try out everything. Her energy is startling. If only she could channel some of her libido into her career.
 
In April, they glance up from the present to peer into the future and compare notes. They zoom in on overlaps that promise bonding: exotic destinations, no children, art exhibitions, the intention to stay kind to the world no matter what. We found each other at the perfect moment, he tells her. She nods, although she doesn't agree. She has the feeling of being found, not of having found, and secretly ponders the difference.
 
In May, she casually takes a weekend off from being together. He responds with neediness. Having grown up with three sisters, he believes he bears the key to any female psyche, and what her behavior signifies, clearly, is that she's holding back. I am? she asks. Yes, he replies, you're afraid of losing your independence. Should we smother each other instead? she asks. Yes, oh, yes, please! They make love there and then as though needing to convince an invisible audience of their undying devotion.
 
In June, he tells her she's too physical for him, which makes her feel vulgar, temporarily, and confused. But perhaps he's right; who is she to tell him what he likes? She will have to masturbate when he's not around, even if that means she must take her habits into the tiled confines of his hallway bathroom.
 
In July, his complaints multiply. She is too aloof, too busy, too defensive, not committed enough, not sufficiently interested in his dreams. It appears that he has fallen in love with an improved version of her, an ideal non-existing twin she can only emulate in short bursts. But she's trying, genuinely trying, and that should count for something, they both believe, even if she often fails to get it right.
 
In August, she travels with her widowed mother on a cruise from Trieste to Siracusa, ignoring most yet not all Italian men. Reckoning with the fragility of his male ego, she only sends him pictures of architectural marvels and gustatory delights. The cream-leaking hand-sized cannola breaks him nonetheless. She is passive-aggressively unmanning him long distance.
 
In September, she tries a new strategy. Whenever she doesn't understand what she has done wrong, or not done right, she apologizes anyway, and smiles as he praises her for having seen the light. Their lovemaking, however, sinks to the level of nostalgia. They do it for old time's sake. She imagines what it might feel like to be him, to be so sure you haven't done anything wrong.
 
In October, she brings an end to the make-believe and lets an unfamiliar meanness inspire her deeds. If you must know the truth, she says, I'm always late because you're just too boring to be with for long. After having feared to displease him by accident, it comes as a freedom to displease him deliberately. Now his hard eyes and cold shoulders are at least deserved.
 
In November, she feels so rejected that she suggests they break up. He interprets her suggestion as the definitive proof that he has been right all along and she never truly loved him. When she doesn't contradict him, taking the easy way out, he turns her suggestion into a fact that hinges on a dare: they will separate unless she sacrifices her independence.
 
In December, she feasts on theater and apple pie without regrets. The vague missing of the previous winter has morphed into an existential puzzle that she may or may never solve. But a puzzle isn't a problem. To live, she has learned, is to wonder. 

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