There was another woman. In the not-so long-ago, he had been with another woman.

John remembers her hard face, which he had thought was not pretty when they met. (A party? There was dancing.) But the face became prettier as she said things he liked, things Barb didn’t say anymore. He knows now he should have been smarter. That these were the things all bored old men want to hear. He thought he deserved those things. He was a man, and men should be told those things.

Handsome. Smart. Funny. Strong. Those were some of the feelings or words she had said.

He said things to that woman, and most of them were lies. He lied about Barb. He lied about his unhappiness being her fault when she had always worked so hard. He remembers how hard Barb tried to fit in, to be not so different, because she thought being from Minnesota made her less . . . something . . . than other women. He told that other woman about that, and they laughed. The hard-faced woman laughed at his wife, and John had been glad and it makes no sense now.

Now he remembers the meals Barb made, the cookbooks she bought, the vegetables she grew. How pretty their house was, how nice it always smelled. He remembers how loving she was with Juliet, how delighted Juliet made her.

Juliet. John knows he could have been a better father to her. He should have tried more. She is an important person in the world somehow. People know her. She is impressive.

That other woman, whose name he doesn’t remember, doesn’t want to remember, was like . . . like . . . like that plant that grows up a tree and chokes it. That invader. Invasive species, that’s it. Kudzu. The word flies into his brain. She was kudzu, taking over, blotting out the view, tangling, and he let her.

Words are flying back into his head. Unfaithful. Cheater. Liar.

Cliché.

When his friend came, the new friend with the hair like pieces of rope, he was so happy. She didn’t know him when he was wrong, when he was a liar and stupid. She only knows him the way he is now, and there is no disappointment or hope in her eyes, no expectation that he will be anything other than what he is. She talks to him and talks to him, and laughs. She is not pretty, not like his girls or Barb or even the other woman, but Janet—yes, her name is Janet—makes him feel at peace.

A fear seeps through him, its tentacles cold and coiling. That he has done something terrible by being sick, and his family needs him to be the father again, the husband, and that he will never be able to do this. That he has to fix something or his wife and daughters will never get . . . never be . . . never know . . .

The thought is gone.