“I thought maybe you’d like to take a walk,” she said. “It’s such a pretty day.”

And it was. The sun was shining. Spring was still all around us. We strolled through the embassy ghetto of Kalorama, where the European diplomats’ children were out walking with their South Asian servants, and down into Rock Creek Park. I thought she must have come to push me again to avenge her beloved Arthur. I wanted to tell her the whole story of what was about to happen, but that was impossible. So I said just a few words.

“I’m going to get the man who killed Arthur,” I said. “If everything works out, he’ll go to jail. At the very least, I’ll be able to write about him in the paper.”

“That’s good,” she said. “I’m glad. I knew you would.” That was it. She looked pleased, but she didn’t press me for any more details. I began to wonder if perhaps she had come to see me for some other reason.

I was happy enough to be out walking and didn’t need any explanation for her visit. But after we had gone a mile or so, she stopped and looked at me earnestly, fiercely. “I just couldn’t bear ending it the way we did,” she said. “It seemed wrong to part like that, after so many years. I felt empty afterwards.”

“I did too, but I thought that was probably the right feeling. I mean, we are empty, aren’t we?”

“I guess so. But then, why do I still want to see you?”

“Force of habit. Fear of the future. Genuine affection. All good reasons.”

We walked awhile longer in silence. The bicyclists and joggers rushed by us, on their way to somewhere. I was relaxing, in her presence. I had always loved to watch her walk, the way her feet barely seemed to touch the ground.

“Do you ever want to have kids?” she asked. She took my hand in hers as she said it. That was an unfair thing to do. I held it for a moment and then let it go.

“I don’t know. Finding someone to marry is proving to be harder than I thought.”

“For me, too.”

A tall black man sailed by us on Rollerblades, his muscles rippling as he pressed into each turn. He was dressed in spandex bicycle shorts and wraparound blue-tinted sunglasses, listening to music on his Sony Walkman. He exhibited a perfect solitude, lost in the pleasure of his body and the music and the day. In the wake of the Rollerblader pedaled three small girls on bicycles, followed by a man who appeared to be their father. Each of his daughters needed help with something: a push, an untied shoelace, a horn that wouldn’t honk. Annie watched this pageant attentively.

“What about us?” she said. “Do you think it’s too late for us to have kids?”