Nathan arrived in New York on a Friday, his Edinburgh fellowship finished, his next position not yet started, carrying two bags and the particular energy of a man who had made decisions in transit that he intended to deliver in person. I knew he was coming. I did not know he had already resolved something before the plane landed.
We had dinner at the Italian place on Columbus that we had been going to since my first month back, the kind of restaurant that knew your order and didn’t require conversation to fill the space between courses. Ethan was with Damian for the evening, a scheduled visit, one of four in the past three weeks, each one reported back to me by Ethan in the detailed manner of a field researcher submitting findings. The rooftop. A bookshop in the Village. The park again. T
