The fire does its part to add to the atmosphere, crackling merrily and casting the room in a golden-red glow. Teddy lifts her head, leaning her chin off the edge of her bed as warmth begins to spread through the apartment.

“Gabe,” I say. “What am I doing here?”

He pushes out of a crouch, and comes toward me.

“Don’t you know?” he asks.

My breath catches, and this thing that I think I remember as hope surfaces inside of me like a long-lost dinghy.

I shake my head.

He smiles a little. “Chani,” he says.

“You never called,” I say. “You could have called. After. Later.”

My voice is steadier than I am. I’m waiting for him to say that he did. Waiting for him to mention the call.

He doesn’t.

“You were still married,” Gabe says. “Contrary to rumors, I’m not that kind of guy.”

I give him a look.

He holds up his hands. “I was faithful the entire time I was married,” he says. “That was one of our rules. We were supposed to insulate ourselves from outside gossip, not do anything that could provoke it. The drinking was bad enough. I wasn’t going and looking for trouble with married women.”

“Inviting me to your play doesn’t count?” I ask.

He winces. “Touché.”

We look at each other.

“And then?” I ask. “After I…”

I skip some invisible stones.

“I tried to learn from my mistakes,” he says. “By not calling. By waiting. I wanted to give you some time.”

I wasn’t sure I understood.

“I’ve been divorced for over a year,” I say.

His expression is pained and yet inscrutable.

“What?” I demand.

“You’ve been divorced for over a year?” he asks.

“Separated longer than that,” I say. “It’s been over for almost two years.”

He puts his head in his hands. For a moment I don’t know what’s happening and then I hear him laughing. It isn’t a “ha ha ha” type of laugh, more of a “what the fuck” kind of laugh.

“What?” I ask again. “What are you laughing at?”

He looks up at me, his eyes so green. There’s this kind of hopeless humor to them.

“I only knew about your divorce because you wrote about it,” he says. “A month ago.”

“Oh,” I say.

Of course.

How in the world could Gabe have known? If my newsletter was the way he kept up to date on my life, then of course he would have thought I had just gotten divorced.

“I was going to wait six months,” he says, almost talking to himself. “Six months seemed fair.”

I’m not sure if I’m hearing what I’m actually hearing.