Because there was something else underlying it all. When Dorothy got pregnant, her first choice had been to abort, and I’d gone with her to buy the misoprostol, I was beside her when she used it, lying on the bed, too, with my legs elevated and apart, to support her. It didn’t work. Most likely they’d sold her false pills, but she decided not to try a second time. She never told me whether she regretted the attempt, but I felt a certain tension when we talked about her son. I thought that deep down, in some hidden and unconscious corner in her heart, she reproached me for having supported her in something that she clearly hadn’t wanted. In any case, it would be wrong to say we grew apart because of that. When I disappeared from the map it wasn’t because I felt uncomfortable, it was just that I stopped working at the restaurant and I got busy with my own things.

We’d had a good time together. I saved the customers’ leftovers so we could eat them in secret, and Dorothy saved the juices and milkshakes from the blender. In the middle of the stress of a full restaurant—“in the weeds,” as they say—I’d go running toward the kitchen and tell her “Follow the yellow brick road,” or “There’s no place like home,” and Dorothy would shake her head, laughing. I was sad to feel her so cold now, and for a second I thought about explaining, apologizing if she’d felt that in some way I had been insensitive to her own rhythms and problems. But it would have sounded unjustified and, again, a little arrogant—more conclusions I was drawing about her.

I waved my hand to call the waiter so we could order. There weren’t many customers, and the server, around twenty years old, was killing time by polishing the silverware.

“You remember how we used to do that, entertain ourselves polishing silverware?” I asked, trying to guide the conversation toward anecdotes of a much more secure past.

“I don’t remember anything ‘entertaining’ from back then,” replied Dorothy. “Really, I don’t understand how I stood it for so long in that shitty restaurant.”