Chapter 10

Just as I was about to ask my pointed questions, he surprised me by asking me about myself. I gave him the short, condensed version, starting with school—including Robert—and leading up to the present.

We’d lived together until Robert had died of a brain tumor shortly after the tenth anniversary of our first meeting. Even after three years, thinking about the final months of Robert’s life brought me almost to the point of melancholy. At one point, I’d very nearly sold the town house that we’d bought, furnished, and decorated together, because everything in it was a reminder, one way or another, of Robert. In the end, however, I decided that I couldn’t part with something that we’d both worked so hard to create, and I tried to concentrate upon remembering the happy years that had preceded those final months.