“No.”

“And you started again. Maybe you were happy to leave me out of it.”

“You’ve seen the letters,” he said. “She was very stubborn.”

“She thought it was only fair if you told your family about her.”

“I wanted her to tell you,” he repeated.

“Well, good for you! And did you tell your wife about Maddy?”

“Not yet.”

“Not yet. Were you going to?”

“I wanted to see you first.”

“Are you going to now?”

“I am thinking about it.”

“You’re thinking about it.”

“Yes.”

“And what exactly are you thinking?”

He pulled a face that once would have made me laugh. He always tried to humor his way out of a tight spot.

“Did you want a private relationship with Maddy? Just the two of you?”

“No, Eve . . .”

“It’s easy to impress a young person. With her fantasies of what a father is. When she’s never had one.”

I remembered well that skeptical retraction of the chin, the indulgent frown. “You’re so angry,” said Antonio quietly. “Who wouldn’t be? The fact is,” he went on, spacing his words, “Maddy’s the one who wrote to me. She was the one deciding who knew and who didn’t know.”

I let my voice go soft. “I’m glad for Maddy’s sake she got to know you before she died. I truly am. I wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

“You are?” said Antonio. “Oh, I wish she had told me she was sick!”

“What difference would it have made?”

His eyes watered again. “I don’t know. The questions she asked me! Did I think there was life after death! I thought they were just the usual teenage questions. I would have answered in a different way. It seems like such a . . . brave thing to do. Write to me but hide the most important thing.”

“The most important thing?”

“Such a thing,” he said hastily.

“She was very proud. The last thing she wanted was for people to feel sorry for her. She went ballistic if she thought someone was being nice to her just because she had cancer. She longed for a father. It was a shadow over her, growing up.”

“Eve,” he said. “You have to remember—”

“Maybe she wanted to make sure you didn’t pity her. Or maybe,” I said, “it was her way of getting even.”

He leaned forward until I could see the amber light in his Maddy-gray eyes.

“I thought there was plenty of time. I thought she stopped writing because she had second thoughts. Or I had offended her somehow. Or she told you, and you didn’t like it. I had no idea. I was only guessing.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “It got to me, you know. She got to me.”

“You have your own children.”

“I don’t have a daughter.”

“You thought you’d borrow mine?”