Once our drinks were ordered, I began talking about Maddy. I favored stories showing her spirit and determination. Fearless at three, poised at ten, learning to multiply and to dive, mothering her many friends. She’d been a favorite of the older girls, big sister to the little ones, and naturally at ease with adults. I had notebooks filled with the witty and touching things she said, of interest to no one but me. I wanted the whole of Maddy to exist in Antonio’s mind, and I wanted to give him a glimpse of what he would never have. He let me tell it in my own way, listening in alert silence, his eyes hardly leaving my face. My friends thought they were doing me a favor by not mentioning her. They thought talking about her would remind me of what had happened. Remind me! Antonio let me talk, and as I talked, I felt something that had been displaced was being put back where it belonged.

Eventually we moved on to other subjects: aging parents, gentrification, Olympic stadiums, the chemistry of consciousness. We played the parts of two friends meeting for after-work drinks. I learned again to read his moods, his facial expressions, and his pauses. We started with Maddy and ended with Maddy. We grew increasingly confessional just before it was time to part. I carried my laptop in my bag and the memory stick with her animation on it in my wallet, but the moment never seemed right.

At the Royal Festival Hall bar, I told him about Jack. “Not every boy would have taken that on.”

“No,” said Antonio.

“Would you have fallen in love with a dying girl?”

He smiled a little. “I see where Maddy gets it from.”

“What?”

“These questions.”

“Like what?”

“Like: Are you a loner? How does music work in the brain? Are you an atheist? Like what happens—” He stopped to give some change to a man shuffling between the tables.

“What happens . . .” I prompted.

“I said things I would never have said if I’d known.”

“So what would you have told her if you’d known?” Maddy’s veiled references to her illness and her future had cut me deeply. Why hadn’t she been able to ask me those questions?

“I’m not sure,” he said after a moment.

“When she was around five, Maddy got very worried about death. Mine, mostly. I was putting her to bed one night. ‘Mom,’ she said, ‘you’re going to die before me! When I die, how will I find you?’ ”

“And what did you say?”

“I said: ‘Don’t worry. I’ll find you.’ ”

Antonio’s eyes were intense on my face.

“I heard no more about it for a long time.”

“My boys don’t talk about these things.”

“Oh, I’m sure they do, Antonio. Just not to you.”

He gave me a long sideways look.