I thought about this for a minute. ‘I care because it is a harder way to live,’ I said.

‘And that’s it?’ he said skeptically. ‘You mean you wouldn’t rather she was with a man?’

Again, I hesitated. ‘I guess at this point, I just want her with good people.’

He got quiet as he drove. Then he said, ‘I’m sorry about tonight. I know I was a jerk.’

‘Thank you for apologizing,’ I said.

‘Well, the truth is, things aren’t going so good for me personally right now. Molly and me were doing fine until about a week ago when Doris called.’

I wasn’t terribly surprised. Old spouses and lovers have a way of resurfacing.

‘Seems she found out about Molly because Rocky said something. Now all of a sudden she wants to come home. She wants to get back with me.’

When Doris had left, Marino was devastated. But at this stage in my life I somewhat cynically believed that fractured relationships could not be set and healed like bones. He lit another cigarette as a truck bore down on our rear and swung past. A vehicle rushed up behind us, its high beams in our eyes.

‘Molly wasn’t happy about it,’ he went on with difficulty. ‘Truth is, we hadn’t been getting along so hot since and it’s just as well we didn’t spend Christmas together. I think she’s started going out on me, too. This sergeant she met. Wouldn’t you know. I introduced them at the FOP one night.’

‘I’m very sorry.’ I looked over at his face and thought he might cry. ‘Do you still love Doris?’ I gently asked.

‘Hell, I don’t know. I don’t know nothing. Women may as well be from another planet. You know? It’s just like tonight. Everything I do is wrong.’

‘That’s not true. You and I have been friends for years. You must be doing something right.’

‘You’re the only woman friend I got,’ he said. ‘But you’re more like a guy.’

‘Why, thank you.’

‘I can talk to you like a guy. And you know what you’re doing. You didn’t get where you are because you’re a woman. Goddam it’ - he squinted into the rearview mirror, then adjusted it to diminish the glare - ‘you got where you are in spite of your being one.’

He glanced again in the mirrors. I turned around. A car was practically touching our bumper, high beams blinding. We were going seventy miles an hour.

‘That’s weird,’ I said. ‘He has plenty of room to go around us.’

Traffic on 1-95 was light. There was no reason for anyone to tailgate, and I thought of the accident last fall when Lucy had flipped my Mercedes. Someone had been on her rear bumper, too. Fear ran along my nerves.