“So you brought her a pie instead.”
“I brought her the truth,” I said. “The notes she gave you, so she’d know you never wanted them. And her wedding album, so she’d remember who she was before somebody broke her. And a pie, so she’d know she didn’t have to stay broken.”
Irvin looked at me for a long time.
“I married a genius,” he said.
“You married a dental office manager with eleven gray hairs.”
“Fourteen,” he said. “I counted again last week.”
I threw a napkin at him.
He caught it. He laughed his surprised little laugh. Then he put down his plate and took my hand across the patio table.
“Janet,” he said. “Eighteen years. You want to know what I think when I look at you? Right now? With pie on your chin?”
“I have pie on my chin?”
“There she is,” he said. “That’s what I think. Every single time. There she is.“
