"Did he tell you he's married?"
"Divorced."
That answer landed badly.
Amy saw it.
"It doesn't mean anything."
"Does he have kids?"
"Two."
"How old?"
"Eight and six."
"You know a lot for one coffee."
Her eyes flashed with hurt.
"Daniel."
"What?"
"You think I slept with him?"
"No."
"Then what are you accusing me of?"
"I don't know yet."
That was true.
I wasn't sure whether I was angry because she met him or because she hid it or because some primitive part of me hated imagining my wife sitting across from a man who once knew her as intimately as I did.
Maybe more intimately in some ways.
Peter had known the Amy who panicked on a bathroom floor three weeks before a wedding.
I hadn't.
"What did he look like?"
The question slipped out before I could stop it.
Amy stared.
"Seriously?"
"Humor me."
"Older."
"Helpful."
"Gray at the temples."
"Still handsome?"
She frowned.
"I suppose."
"Great."
"Daniel."
"I'm being ridiculous."
"Yes."
"I know."
I drank water.
Then asked the real question.
"Why did you agree to meet him?"
Amy stared at the candle.
"Because I owed him an apology."
"You already ended the relationship. You don't owe somebody access to you forever because they were hurt."
"I know."
"Then?"
She took a breath.
"Because I wanted to know whether I was still afraid."
"Of him?"
"Of that version of myself."
That answer disarmed me slightly.
"What happened when you saw him?"
"It was strange."
"In what way?"
"I recognized him immediately."
She smiled faintly.
"But he also looked like a stranger."
"How did he react?"
"He hugged me."
My jaw tightened.
Amy noticed.
"One second. Public place."
"I didn't say anything."
"Your face did."
"Continue."
She did.
Peter had arrived early.
He had already ordered coffee.
For the first ten minutes, they talked about neutral things.
Jobs.
Cities.
Parents.
His divorce.
Her marriage.
Then Peter asked the question he had apparently carried for thirteen years.
"Why?"
Amy paused.
"I thought I'd answered it back then."
"You told him you didn't love him enough."
"Yes."
"But that wasn't really why."
"No."
"So what did you tell him?"
"The truth."
"What truth?"
"That I was disappearing."
I waited.
"That I had become terrified of his family."
"How did he react?"
"He wasn't surprised."
That stopped me.
"What?"
Amy nodded.
"He said he knew."
"Knew what?"
"That his mother was controlling."
"Then why didn't he do anything?"
"He said he was twenty-six and weak."
I stared.
"That's convenient thirteen years later."