I stopped and looked at her. “Why are you doing this, Annie? You know I still love you. But we’ve hurt each other so much over the years. Not just about Arthur, but other things. There’s so much scar tissue now, I don’t know if anything real can grow.”

“Yeah, I suppose. I don’t know. So what are you going to do?”

“Keep looking. I’d love to be able to start over again fresh. I’d love to look in that other person’s face and see nothing but a clear reflection. Maybe this time I’d be more careful not to damage it.”

She fell silent again. We walked a few minutes, and then she took my hand again. This time I let it stay.

The path we had been traveling beside Rock Creek Parkway was opening to a broad meadow at P Street. Couples, gay and straight, were lying on the grass necking. Annie looked at one boy and girl wrapped around each other. They couldn’t have been much older than sixteen. He had his hand under her T-shirt. Her eyes were closed in rapture.

“Let’s rest,” she said. We found our own patch of grass, away from everyone else. It looked out on an array of daffodils, spread along a hillside. Annie looked at me coyly. “I saw this cute thing on TV. They were asking famous couples what they found sexy about each other. And it made me think about us.”

“Go on.”

“Well, one of the questions was what was sexy about the other person. And I wondered what you’d say about me. What’s the sexiest thing I ever did when we were together?”

“Mmmm.” I smiled. She was outrageous. “That’s tough. There were so many things. But probably what I liked best was when you weren’t trying to be sexy. Just watching you put on your clothes, when you didn’t know I was looking. You were so graceful. I always thought about that when I was away from you.”

“Eric! That’s embarrassing.” Her cheeks were blushing. She tilted her head back and shook her ponytail in the wind. “Anyway, that doesn’t count. I couldn’t help it.”

She slipped her arm around my waist and pulled me toward her. “We could try to start again,” she said. “We could see if it works this time.”

“We’ve had enough of trying, Annie. I can’t be tentative anymore. I need to start over. I need to make a relationship count this time, so it’s for real. Since the day I met you, I’ve been straddling somewhere between being married and being single, and I don’t want that anymore. It wore us down. We can’t go on trying.”

Her eyes widened. “Do you want to get married?”