“No,” Myron said.

“Women’s golf,” she muttered. “I was at the height of my game, the top female golfer in the world, and yet you never read about it.”

“I don’t follow golf much,” Myron said.

“Yeah, right,” she snorted. “If Jack Nicklaus took two years off, you would have heard about it.”

Myron nodded. She had a point. “Was it tough coming back?” he asked.

“You mean in terms of playing or leaving my son?”

“Both.”

She took a breath and considered the question. “I missed playing,” she said. “You have no idea how much. I regained the number one spot in a couple of months. As for Chad, well, he was still an infant. I hired a nanny to travel with us.”

“How long did that last?”

“Until Chad was three. That’s when I realized that I couldn’t drag him around anymore. It wasn’t fair to him. A child needs some sort of stability. So I had to make a choice.”

They fell into silence.

“Don’t get me wrong,” she said. “I’m not into the self-pity thing and I’m glad women are given choices. But what they don’t tell you is that when you have choices, you have guilt.”

“What kind of guilt?”

“A mother’s guilt, the worst kind there is. The pangs are constant and ceaseless. They haunt your sleep. They point accusatory fingers. Every joyous swing of the golf club made me feel like I was forsaking my own child. I flew home as often as I could. I missed some tournaments that I really wanted to play in. I tried damn hard to balance career and motherhood. And every step of the way, I felt like a selfish louse.” She looked at him. “Do you understand that?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“But you don’t really sympathize,” she added.

“Of course I do.”

Linda Coldren gave him a skeptical glance. “If I had been a stay-at-home mother, would you have been so quick to suspect that Chad was behind this? Didn’t the fact that I was an absent mother sway your thinking?”

“Not an absent mother,” Myron corrected. “Absent parents.”

“Same thing.”

“No. You were making more money. You were by far the more successful parent business-wise. If anyone should have stayed home, it was Jack.”

She smiled. “Aren’t we politically correct?”

“Nope. Just practical.”

“But it’s not that simple, Myron. Jack loves his son. And during the years he didn’t qualify for the tour, he did stay home with him. But let’s face facts: Like it or not, it’s the mother who bears that burden.”

“Doesn’t make it right.”

“Nor does it let me off the hook. Like I said, I made my choices. If I had to do it all over again, I still would have toured.”

“And you still would have felt guilty.”

She nodded. “With choice comes guilt. No escaping it.”

Myron took a sip of his Yoo-Hoo. “You said that Jack stayed home some of the time.”

“Yes,” she said. “When he failed Q school.”

“Q school?”

“Qualifying school,” she said. “Every year the top 125 moneymakers get their PGA Tour card automatically. A couple of other players get sponsor exemptions. The rest are forced to go to Q school. Qualifying school. If you don’t do well there, you don’t play for the year.”

“One tournament decides all that?”

She tilted the glass at him as though making a toast. “That’s right.”

Talk about pressure. “So when Jack failed Q school, he’d stay home for the year?”

She nodded.

“How did Jack and Chad get along?”

“Chad used to worship his father,” Linda said.

“And now?”

She looked off, her face vaguely pained. “Now Chad is old enough to wonder why his father keeps losing. I don’t know what he thinks anymore. But Jack is a good man. He tries very hard. You have to understand what happened to him. Losing the Open that way—it might sound overly melodramatic, but it killed something inside him. Not even having a son could make him whole.”

“It shouldn’t matter so much,” Myron said, hearing the echo of Win in his words. “It was just one tournament.”

“You were involved in a lot of big games,” she said. “Ever choke away a victory like Jack did?”

“No.”

“Neither have I.”

Two gray-haired men sporting matching green ascots made their way down the buffet table. They leaned over each food selection and frowned like it had ants. Their plates were still piled high enough to cause the occasional avalanche.

“There’s something else,” Linda said.

Myron waited.

She adjusted the sunglasses and put her hands on the table palms down. “Jack and I are not close. We haven’t been close in many years.”

When she didn’t continue, Myron said, “But you’ve stayed married.”

“Yes.”

He wanted to ask why, but the question was so obvious, just hanging out there within easy view, that to voice it would be redundant.

“I am a constant reminder of his failures,” she continued. “It’s not easy for a man to live with that. We’re supposed to be life partners, but I have what Jack longs for most.” Linda tilted her head. “It’s funny.”

“What?”

“I never allow mediocrity on the golf course. Yet I allowed it to dominate my personal life. Don’t you find that odd?”

Myron made a noncommittal motion with his head. He could feel Linda’s unhappiness radiating off her like a breaking fever. She looked up now and smiled at him. The smile was intoxicating, nearly breaking his heart. He found himself wanting to lean over and hold Linda Coldren. He felt this almost uncontrollable urge to press her against him and feel the sheen of her hair in his face. He tried to remember the last time he had held such a thought for any woman but Jessica; no answer came to him.

“Tell me about you,” Linda suddenly said.

The change of subject caught him off guard. He sort of shook his head. “Boring stuff.”

“Oh, I doubt that,” she said, almost playfully. “Come on now. It’ll distract me.”

Myron shook his head again.

“I know you almost played pro basketball. I know you hurt your knee. I know you went to law school at Harvard. And I know you tried to make a comeback a few months ago. Want to fill in the blanks?”