He ignored the remark. Then our food came and we both ate like we hadn’t eaten in a week. Minutes passed, and there was quiet between us for the first time all day. But it wasn’t quiet in my head. I was thinking about all the things I had imagined I would say to Cal if I ever saw him again. This was something I’d imagined a thousand times in a thousand different ways. Now here he was, sitting across from me. I had to start somewhere.

“Fuck, Cal. I’m sorry.”

He looked up, burger in hand, mouth full. “Harp, no. It’s fine.”

“It’s not.” I was on beer number three and stirred by liquid courage. “Just hear me out, OK?”

He wiped his hands on his napkin and gave me his full attention.

“Here’s what I want to say. You did it. You did everything you said you were going to do and more. Seriously. Everything. I’m proud of you. And I’m sorry I let you down. I’m sorry for dropping out of your life. I’m sorry for not being there for you. I’m sorry for so many things.”

He drained his beer and peered at me through a wispy chunk of hair that had fallen across his eye. But he didn’t shake me off or contradict anything I said. He just listened.

“This is hard,” I admitted. A lot of emotions were hitting me at once. I thought of all the years of Cal’s life that I’d missed. I thought of Terry dying, and I thought about the night I’d spent with October. Sitting there with Cal, realizing what I’d done, I swore to myself that nothing else would happen between October and me. I didn’t care what kind of free-love shit they had going on or how I felt about her, I could see right away that he loved her, and I wasn’t going to get in the middle of that.

“The thing is,” I said, “I’m just so fucking sorry.”

“You don’t need to keep saying that.”

“I do. You don’t even know.” I shook my head and felt myself getting shaky. “You got married, Cal. You fucking got married and I wasn’t there. You got divorced and I wasn’t there. Terry died and I wasn’t there. You won a fucking Grammy and I wasn’t there.”

“None of that matters now.”

“I don’t understand why you’re not pissed at me.”

“We were kids, Harp.”

“But I bailed on you. I made you promises, and I didn’t keep any of them.”

There was a small votive candle in the middle of our table. Cal reached out and put his finger on top of the flame, and at first I flinched, thinking he was going to get burned, but then I realized the flame was fake, plastic, battery-powered.