Until … a group was going to India to stay in an ashram. I could go with them, he said, but I hadn’t finished college. ‘I’ll be back in a few months,’ Michael promised. It was like Marcia leaving all over again and I hardened myself with the mantra that people I loved, left. I didn’t need anyone, I told myself, but I felt his absence like a missing limb. But he did return, full of newfound wisdom about the importance of detachment from worldly possessions and the idea that attachment to people causes pain; the world was illusion, a dream. No problem, I thought. It was pretty close to what I’d come to believe, anyway. Plus I’d learned about Eastern philosophy from Marcia. I joined him in meditating, read the Buddhist and Hindu scriptures, put posters of Lord Krishna up on the wall, had statues of the Buddha on shelves, but it wasn’t enough. Something had changed. Michael’s aspired detachment from the world appeared to include me, and the East was calling him back. A few months later, he took off again. ‘What we have is special, you know that,’ he said before he left. ‘If it’s meant to be, our paths will cross again.’

It hurt. I hurt. It was true what the Buddha taught: attachment did cause pain. I withdrew and nursed my broken heart. I got a postcard from Delhi, then Goa, then nothing. A year later, Matthew told me that he’d heard on the grapevine that Michael had married an Australian girl called Celia. So much for detachment, I thought. He taught me a big lesson in love, which was that when a man said he didn’t want to settle, he meant, not with you, anyway. I went wild for a short time. I needed to know I was attractive, and could get a lover if I wanted. I proved that I could, but sex without love felt empty, the phase didn’t last long, and I can barely remember the names of the men I slept with.

*

I put Michael’s Christmas card to one side. Would I call him? See him? Could I risk what feelings he might evoke? My relationship with him had been a long time ago. What could he possibly want now? To relive old times? Was he still married to Celia? Was he still as beautiful as he had been when young, or bald as a coot and dried up from the sun? My curiosity was aroused. Maybe I would see him if he got in touch. I could ask him what became of Moonbeam and Star; had he had them with some other woman? Ouch. A wave of regret rose in me. Michael might have been a long time ago but the wounds he’d inflicted had gone deep.