The second anniversary of the arrangement, not the real wedding, but the conference room on the fourteenth floor, fell on a Thursday in October.
I didn’t mention it until he did.
He mentioned it at breakfast.
“Two years from the conference room,” he said.
“Yes,” I said.
“I was thinking about what I said to you,” he said. “In the car. That there was a car waiting.”
“I remember,” I said.
“I’ve thought about it many times,” he said. “It’s the thing I would most change. Not what I said. I didn’t know how to say anything else then. But I would change the fact that I didn’t know how to say anything else.”
I looked at him across the kitchen counter.
“What would you say now?” I said.
He thought about it for a moment with the seriousness the question deserved.
“I would say welcome,” he s
