I glance at his hand. Nope. Still missing a ring.

"What happened to your wife?"

Harold's expression goes a little weird. It's subtle. Just a squint to his eyes, a vague downturn of his mouth. I quickly look out the window.

"Nevermind. Sorry. None of my business."

He clears his throat, seeming to recover from the shock that I asked him something so personal. "We split up. She, ah, left. About three weeks after Maggie passed away."

"What a shitty time to ditch someone."

Harold bites back a laugh. "We'd been having issues long before that. It just...came to a head."

"Oh." Long pause. I'm not sure if I should keep talking, or let the subject go. It really isn't any of my business, but Harold asks about my well-being all the time, so... "Why?"

The smile on his face is a sad one. "She was seeing someone else. An insurance salesman, if you can believe it."

"She has a thing for guys in hated professions."

"Yeah. I guess she does." Harold chuckles, turning into another parking lot. "It's all right, though. Can't say I blame her. She thought I worked too much, and...well. Why are you asking me all this?"

"I don't know. I guess I'm curious." Maybe I got used to Robert, who talked to me like an adult. Told me things. Like I was one of the guys. I liked that feeling.

Harold nods. He parks in a shaded spot outside the auto store and kills the engine with a deep sigh. I'm about to get out of the car when he speaks back up. "Susan wanted kids. We tried. For several years, in fact. She got pregnant a couple times, but we lost them all."

They...?

Oh.

I stare at him.

"Three miscarriages. Eventually we kind of gave up because she was getting up there in age anyway."

"But if it wasn't your fault," I say slowly, "why was she blaming you?"

"Sometimes people need someone to blame." He shrugs. "Or maybe she didn't blame me so much as she was reminded of what we would never have when she looked at me. She met this other guy a few years younger, better looking, who had the time to go out and do things..."

I'm trying to wrap my head around this. "How doesn't that make you really sad?"

Harold twists in his seat toward me. "It does make me sad, Vincent. It makes me really sad."

"You don't look it."

"Just because someone doesn't act or look unhappy doesn't mean their lives are perfect." He raises his eyebrows. "There's this method of dealing with things that involves keeping your chin up. Knowing whatever crap you're dealing with right now isn't going to last forever. All things pass."

I was with him up until this point. Because he's wrong. "Not all things." I shove open the door and get out. Harold follows. Not that I'm going anywhere, I'm just...walking a tight circle in the empty parking spot beside his car. "Sometimes bad stuff does last. Sometimes it kills you."