He decided in December.
Not impulsively and not after extensive deliberation in the way of someone who needed to convince themselves but in the quiet settled way of a man who had given something the time it required and arrived at clarity.
He told me over breakfast on a Tuesday.
“I’d like to go in February,” he said. “When Rose is old enough to travel more easily. The three of us.”
“All right,” I said.
“I don’t know what it will be,” he said. “The meeting. I don’t have expectations.”
“Good,” I said. “Expectations in advance of meetings like this one are mostly projections anyway.”
He looked at me. “When did you get so wise?”
“I had a difficult year,” I said. “It’s the same answer every time.”
He smiled. Not the small corner version. The full one, which still arrived infrequently e
