Right after we’d met, Ethan had told me that when his career as an indie filmmaker had imploded, he’d also blown up a marriage to a woman he’d loved with all his heart, and that by the time he’d wrecked his car, blowing up his leg wasn’t even that big a deal.

“Figuring things out was the plan,” Ethan said. He was drawing arrows now, each one pointing off in another direction. “But I think the problem is that the Curse of Knowledge has come into play. You know, once you know something, it’s impossible to imagine what it’s like not to know it.”

“Which means?”

“Which means she knows what I’m like at my worst. And I don’t think she can forget it long enough to believe that it’s never going to happen again.”

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

Maybe if Ethan went first and figured out his relationship, I might get some new insights that would help me navigate things with John. Like getting a bonus clue. Not that I’d ever met Ethan’s ex, and not that Ethan and John were anything alike. But maybe all relationships flourished or floundered because of the same basic things. And I’d really love to figure out exactly what those things were.

When Ethan leaned back and stretched out his damaged leg, he was back in the sunbeam again.

“I have no idea how it will all play out,” he said. “Sometimes I think it’s like there’s this tree dying in a pot in the living room. You know it’s dying, but you’ve had it for so long and you’re really attached to it and you can’t imagine what it would be like not to have it. And then you stop watering it. You forget, or you just get lazy. But you know damn well that the minute you throw it out, all you’re going to think about is how amazing it used to be, and you’ll be kicking yourself that you didn’t put the time and energy in to keep it that way.”

“If I have one regret about my former marriage,” I said, “it’s that when things were first falling apart, I didn’t try harder to save it. But hindsight 20/20, I think there’s also a point that you can’t look back. You’ve got to focus on moving forward. You know, fish or cut bait.”

Ethan nodded. “Shit or get off the pot.”

“Insert overused cringe-worthy expression here,” I said.

Ethan stared out the teachers’ room window, sketched, stared out the window, sketched some more.

I found a fresh page in my own notebook, started playing around with an idea for “Five Little Icicles.”

Five little icicles

Hanging on the door

One broke off

And then there were four

Four little icicles

Dangling from the tree

One fell off