“We both minded. Very much. But … Pat couldn’t. We sublimated, I guess. Then we talked about all the needy and unwanted children in the world. That’s when we started the foundation. Pat traveled to Africa, to India, wherever kids were starving and in need of medical attention. She established group homes in places where kids were living on the streets. And in the last ten years or so, she’d been doing volunteer work with AIDS babies, you know, holding them, cuddling them, helping them feel that someone cares. In fact, she organized a whole army of volunteers to cover all the hospitals in Boston.”

“She sounds like a remarkable woman.”

“Oh, yes.” Brad’s eyes glistened as he retreated for a moment into memory. Jenna reached across the table and put her hand over his. The gesture felt right. Strange, she thought, to be drawn to a man because he had loved his wife. And yet, not so strange; as a psychologist, she knew very well that Brad’s devotion to Pat gave testimony to his own capacity to love.

When she noticed the septuagenarian waiter glance at his watch, Jenna looked at her own. “It’s awfully late,” she said reluctantly. “I think the old gentleman would like us to leave.”

O

“May I kiss you?” he asked at Jenna’s door. “What?”

“First date,” he mumbled.

“My God—you are old-fashioned.” But Jenna was charmed. “I think,” she told him, “I’m old-fashioned, too.”

His lips brushed hers; his hand gently stroked her cheek. An undemanding caress but filled with promise, it evoked distant memories of being cared for and loved. She wished it could go on and on.

She discovered that they had more in common than loss and loneliness. They both loved the North End and the Isabella Gardner Museum; hated diets and much of what passed for modern art. But most important, they discovered that they were easy in one another’s company. Whether they were at a Red Sox game or strolling the banks of the Charles, conversation seemed effortless. The silences they shared seemed cozy, not at all like empty spaces needing to be filled.

One Saturday afternoon, after they’d browsed through the cookbooks at Waterstone’s and shared a club sandwich at an outdoor cafe, Brad said, “I’d like you to come to tea. Tomorrow. At my mother’s house.’’

“Your mother?”

“Sure. Bound to happen sometime. I think you’re going to be an import- ant part of my life. So we might as well get meeting my mother out of the way. Besides, it could be fun.”

Jenna was touched and flattered. But remembering her mother-in-law, the formidable Faiza, she very much doubted that such a meeting would be “fun.”

She was right.