He held my gaze for a long moment, his lips gathered into an expression I couldn’t read. He squinted at the ceiling. “Are those milk bottles?”

“This place used to be a dairy.” I pointed to the metal plaque. “I memorized that while I was waiting. Ask me anything.”

Eyes on the light fixture, he said: “I’ve thought about you a lot over the years, you know. If you want the truth, Eve, I thought one day we would all meet. When Maddy was older. Remember, it was a shock for me, the first time she wrote.”

“Oh, was it?”

“Erica knew nothing.”

The casual way he inserted her name in our conversation stung me. “You know,” I said slowly, “there’s something I’m not getting here. People find each other these days. Maddy was planning to contact you when she was eighteen. When I could be sure she really wanted to.”

He was staring at me.

“What?” I snapped. “You knew you had a child out there. You could have found us first.” I understood then that for the whole of Maddy’s life I had been waiting for Antonio to find us.

In a voice hoarse with wonder, he said: “But I thought you were getting rid of it!”

“It?”

“Her,” he said humbly.

“Never! I never wanted an abortion!” The women at the nearest table glanced our way. I lowered my voice to a hiss: “I told you that.”

His face was darkening slowly. “Yes, I know, but you changed your mind. That’s what you told me,” he said. “When you left.”

What could I do but shake my head?

“You did, Eve!” His face was distorted, strange. “I kept calling you up, many times.”

“Once.”

“Lots of times! I can’t believe this. I can’t believe you’re saying this! I left messages on the machine. I went by your apartment looking for you. I left notes.”

“I’d gone to stay with my parents. I was sick of talking about it. What was the point? You’d made your position clear.”

He studied me for a moment, before casting his eyes down. In a low, reluctant voice, he said: “I think I kind of froze. You know? I was so sure I did not want to become a father. It was not in my”—he smiled unhappily—“life plan. At that time I was obsessed with keeping to my plan. But after you left that day, I was afraid.”

“Afraid of what?” An idea was forming in my mind, so hideous that I banished it immediately.

“Afraid I had talked you into it. Or that you would do it to spite me.” His face threatened to crumple again. “I really didn’t know what I wanted. But I didn’t want to get rid of it just like that. I knew I had no right to force anything on you. Either way.”