For the past few years, I knew he’d been living in Atlanta, working for the Atlanta History Center: Rusty and I are members, and I read the newsletter. Hutch had been hired to manage and create all their special exhibits, which occur a few times a year. This time the new exhibit was about ten different women. I wondered if he would still have done the project if the show were about just Mother, about only Lillian Ashford Eddington, the woman he partially blamed for our breakup.

I know the reason Hutch and I have never run into each other—our circle of friends could not be more different. I’d once thought I saw him at the market, but by the time I made my way across the dog food aisle, he was gone. I found myself standing there for so long with shaking feelings of familiarity and desire that a stranger asked if I was okay. Yes, I was fine, thanks for asking.

There was one other time I’d seen him, but it was in Florida. I’d been in a restaurant in Seaside. Lil was ten years old and we were on a spring break trip. Sadie and I had taken the kids, as Rusty had decided there was no way he was leaving when he had Masters golf tickets. Sadie chased six-year-old Connor across the restaurant. Clams congealed on my plate, curdling in the heat, when I looked up and saw Hutch’s face across the room. He stood alone at the entranceway. My heart was an entire sea rolling toward the shore in instinct.

I stood next to him before I knew I’d walked across the room. He looked at me. First the smile—it’s always first the smile. People’s faces initially do what comes natural—and then comes the real reaction. Next his face was a blank wall, his eyes a calm bay.

“Hi, Hutch,” I stammered, and pointed across the room toward Sadie. “I’m here, too.”

He nodded. “I see that.” And he laughed, but kindly. He doesn’t know how to be anything but. Even in anger there is no meanness, just emptiness. Maybe rage is better—at least it’s an emotion. What Hutch showed was complete indifference, or so it seemed.

I saw her then: a tall woman with curls walking toward him. He moved to her, kissing her in greeting. I backed away, stumbled into the table behind me, where a woman’s iced tea toppled over in the same slow motion as my heart. When I’d finished apologizing, when I’d wiped my skirt, Hutch and his wife were gone, as if they’d never been there.