The way it began could be considered innocent enough. Emmett has a large collection of unique trinkets, all made from blown glass. He has made them himself, something he learned in college and later perfected right after his wife left him. It was a way to fill the time, to drown out the silence and keep his mind from wandering back to better days, days that are now lost to him.

      His life has become so simple and consistent that he barely recognizes the passing of days. A retired psychiatrist, he has now shut off the portion of his brain that engaged in psychoanalysis. He no longer has patients to analyze, which leaves only his own mind as a specimen, a thought that is neither attractive nor safe.

      He hadn't noticed the new neighbors at first. They slipped into their new home seemingly overnight, causing little disruption on the small street. While walking to his mailbox one morning, he catches a glimpse of a woman and a young girl leaving the house. The woman has her head down and is straightening her blouse while the younger girl skips to the car, spinning around in a little half dance in the driveway. He stands there for a moment watching them under the guise of sorting through his mail. The woman is non-descript, the type of woman you would not notice on the street unless she walked up to you and spoke, and even then the reaction would be benign. But the younger girl possesses a fresh exuberance, a gaiety that could easily become contagious if one were in her presence for mere moments. He feels the corners of his mouth twitch and he closes the mailbox with shaking hands.

      As he walks back into his house, he feels as though he has been pummeled in the stomach. He tries to remember the last time he has felt so electrified by gazing upon a young woman and this brings to mind the memory of the first time he had met his ex-wife. She had the same kind of innocent intensity, the attitude that she was invincible and unstoppable. This sensual force was what had compelled him to ask her to marry him, the same force that would prove to be the destruction of their relationship. A relationship that, although passionate and severe in its intensity, was still as fragile as his blown glass creations, just waiting to shatter.

      "Mother, look at this," Camille is saying as she stands on her toes and peers out the kitchen window. "Look at these bottles. There, in the window."

      "Camille, must you call me mother? Why not Mom like most children do?" Cynthia says, wiping her hands on a towel and joining her daughter at the window. "What bottles?"

      "Don't you see? In that window? There's a whole row of different colored glass bottles." Camille waits while her mother reaches for her glasses.

      "Well, look at that," Cynthia says. "Those are pretty. But you really shouldn't be staring in the neighbors' windows. That's not going to make us too popular."

      Camille rolls her eyes, in typical teenage fashion. "Whatever," She says, and she only says this because she knows it irritates her mother. She herself hates the preferred word of her generation, but she doesn't hate it enough to not employ it when she is trying to annoy her mother.

      "I'm going outside," Camille says abruptly. "I'll be in for dinner. I want to explore our new street a bit." She heads for the door.

      "Take your jacket," Cynthia calls as she makes her way down to the basement to unpack more boxes.

      "I don't need it," Camille yells back, and opens the door to leave but not before hearing her mother shout, "Oh, that's right. You're fifteen now, you're your own person. Just ignore me, the mother."

      Camille knocks softly on the door, and then hesitates before knocking again. Despite wanting to do everything to the contrary of what her mother tells her she should do, she begins to wonder if perhaps it is rude to just knock on someone's door unannounced. She is about to turn around and head back home when Emmett opens the door.

      "Oh, hi," she says, startled. "I'm really sorry to just barge in on you, but-I'm Camille. My mother and I just moved in next door and I thought I'd come over and introduce myself. I couldn't help noticing those glass bottles you have in your window."

      Emmett's breathing has become labored and he grasps the door tightly. "Oh. Well, thank you. I'm Emmett. Pleasure to meet you." He waits for her to say something else, but Camille is at a loss. All that she intended to say has already been said and now she feels foolish.

      "Okay, then," she says, suddenly shy. "Um, I'll just go. Nice meeting you." She tugs on her ponytail and bites her lip. She waves and begins to walk away, but Emmett's voice calls her back.

      "I make them," he says, and Camille thinks she can detect a hint of desperation in his voice. "The bottles. I made them and I make other things too - from blown glass. I have a whole collection, actually. They're not worth anything, but it's a hobby that I really enjoy. Would you like to see more?" Camille nods eagerly, following him inside.

      Camille's visit has left Emmett shaking and desperate. He cannot remember the last time someone has knocked on his door wanting to speak with him. He doesn't know what he's done to merit this elation, but he knows what he is feeling is a double-edged sword. Her visit has awakened a longing within him that he had considered dead and stagnant, a joy so far beyond his grasp that it was torturous to even entertain the notion. He sees in this young woman the face of his ex-wife, a woman who could quicken his pulse and flood his heart with love with just a glance. Dakota had been only sixteen when they'd married and he'd been nineteen, just entering his first year at Yale. After four miscarriages, they had resigned themselves to the fact that they would never be parents and they devoted their time to one another, traveling and pursuing mutual cultural interests. When Dakota had told him twenty years after they were married that she could not continue on with a life with him that she considered to be unfulfilling and draining, he had been chilled to the very core, not so much in anguish that she no longer loved him, but because he didn't know who he was without her by his side to define him. After Dakota fled from his life, he buried himself in his work and his hobby, not noticing other women because the one woman who had kept him alive was gone and neither she nor her life sustaining power could ever be duplicated.

      Looking in the mirror, he sees himself for what he is: a fifty-four year old retiree, who has nothing to show for the love he once gave so readily. This knowledge haunts him daily, usurping his thoughts and consuming his soul.

      And now he has met Camille; he has been thrown directly into temptation's path. She is a child of fifteen, one year shy of Dakota's age on their wedding day. But when Emmett sees Camille, he forgets the present. He forgets that he is almost four times her age, for when he looks at her, it is as though he is just now meeting Dakota. Again, for the first time.

      Camille rolls over and stretches on Emmett's couch, her gaze locked on the upholstery. He has taken her again, and again Camille has allowed him. She doesn't know for certain what he wants from her, she knows only that when she kisses him and touches him all over with her hands, tears spring to his eyes. She cannot quite discern if these are tears of joy or tears of regret. It doesn't really matter to her one way or the other. All that she now cares about is that when she is with him, she feels as though she is the most powerful person alive. Camille has come to love the way Emmett stares at her, as if he is memorizing every detail of her face and body and storing it away in a place of his mind that is reserved only for adoration. She can bring him to his knees with one look, and if she is sad or gets angry with him, which she does on occasion because she has come to love the attention this brings her, he quickly bathes her in kisses and affection, holding her close and stroking her body as though it belongs to him.

      And, in a way, she does belong to him. She has given him all of herself, though she would never tell him this. He has been her first everything, her first kiss and her first sexual partner and her first taste of womanhood. For now Camille has learned what it is about women that men love and she uses this with Emmett. She practices this newfound identity on him, knowing that she can be as hard or soft as she pleases, as immature and bratty as she desires, and he will still love her. He will still want her, and will reach for her as though she is his lifeline.

      She sits up and pulls on his large flannel shirt, covering herself from his scrutiny. Even though she feels she is in control she is still afflicted with the adolescent embarrassment that goes along with lounging around naked with one's older lover. She reaches out her hand for her wine glass and he jumps abruptly to bring it to her lips.

      "Are you sad, darling?" He asks, touching her hair. "You seem melancholy today." He presses his lips to her covered breasts, and she pushes him away.

      "A boy at school asked me to go to the dance with him," she begins. "I told him that I would." She waits for his response. She is longing to hear him beg her not to go, to tell her that boys are no good for her, they will only hurt her, and he is the one who loves her and he will not stand for her sharing herself with another. But he says no such thing. Unlike Camille, Emmett has had more experience and he knows that to publicly claim her and force his love upon her would be like inviting a bullet into his chest.

      "I see, darling," he says, taking her hands. "Well, have a nice time. I'll miss you."

      Her eyes flash at him angrily. "So, you want me to go? You want me to let him feel me up in the car, too?"

      He stares at her, his expression unchanging. "You will do as you will anyway. I want only your happiness. If I get the chance to share that with you, then I will consider myself blessed. If not, then it was not meant to be."

      Her anger at this display of indifference makes her neck flush. "I thought you loved me. I thought you worshipped me. You shouldn't push me away," she adds, suggestively rubbing her hands over his shorts. "You'll regret it later."

      "Ah, darling," he says, leaning his head back and feeling himself harden under her hand. "I shall just add it to the ever-growing list."

      Camille stands under the hot spray of the shower, letting the water cascade over her face and she thinks about the dog that her father bought her six years ago. Spiffy was a wonderful puppy, always quick to lavish kisses on her when she came home from school or when she was feeling sad or lonely. Now Spiffy lives with her father and his new wife and baby. She recalls how easily her father left her, yet how he couldn?t bear to part from Spiffy.

      She imagines how her father would feel if he knew his daughter was having an affair with a man older than he was. She had the fleeting thought that he would come back for her, snatch her up with a flourish and love her the way he used to love her. She's not sure if she would welcome or reject such an action, but somehow just the idea soothes her, and that's enough for the time being.

      As she dries off, she walks into the kitchen and looks out the window. She sees Emmett standing in front of his own window, staring back at her. She stares levelly, bound and determined not to be the first one to look away. He lifts up a brightly colored blue bottle, kisses it and then places it back on the windowsill and disappears.

      Camille is laughing as Emmett makes spaghetti for the two of them. She thinks that he looks outrageously ridiculous while he cooks, as though he were acting in a play about how other normal people live their lives. Emmett mistakes her mockery for happiness and he smiles at her.

      "Dinner is served," he says, placing the plate in front of her on the table, but Camille is not hungry. She grasps his hand and pulls him from his seat. He looks at her with bewilderment but says nothing, following her lead to his study. She pushes him down the floor in front of the bookcase. Emmett owns more books than she has ever seen in her life, even when she visits the library. The idea of all that knowledge, all the beautiful prose and provocative stories at her fingertips makes her passion rise and she straddles the surprised Emmett.

      "I've always wanted to make love in here," she says, putting him inside her. "Surrounded by all these books." He laughs softly, but stops when he sees how serious she is. "Especially since this is our last time." His eyes close and he feels the pain rise up in his chest. Even when you're expecting it, the inevitable always packs a mean punch.

      They eat their dinner in silence. Emmett reaches for her hand a few times, but each time she is quick to pull away from him, a definitive sign that this stage of her life is over and there will be no going back.

      "Why?" He asks, when she is poised by the door, ready to leave. "I always knew you wouldn't last forever, but-why now?"

      She shrugs. "I don't know. It just doesn't seem right anymore. I think-I think I'm going to go live with my father, so I wouldn't be here anyway. I'm going to write to him, my father, I mean. I'm sure if he knows how much I miss him, he'll want me to come live with him. And I can baby-sit his new baby, too. He'd probably like that. Don't you think?" she asks, tears pricking behind her eyes, because she knows her words are empty and meaningless, another fantasy, a by-product of the childhood she attempted to rid herself of with Emmett.

      "I think he'd love that," Emmett says softly. She nods quickly and hops down the steps, running towards her driveway, the slight trembling of her legs just barely detectable.

      Emmett watches as she bends down to retrieve the house key from under the mat and his heart lurches. Hell is too good for me, he thinks.

      And again he greets the silence of his life; only this time he welcomes it. This eternal silence will be his penance for loving the wrong person at the wrong time, a haunting reminder that he is only worthy enough for this place: a home for just him, surrounded by his memories and his glass, fragile yet constant.