THAT FIRST SUMMER gave way to a first autumn, winter, and spring; became a year, followed by a second; and then began the final summer.

Eddie never said, “Stay!” or “Don’t go!” and so I kept coming. I often spent the first days and nights at her place sleeping as if I were half-dead because the naps I grabbed in airport transit, lounges, trains, and long-distance buses were never sufficient, and in any case I never slept for very long or very deeply anywhere. I sometimes imagined how it might be to spend the rest of my life with Eddie. One thing was for sure: I would never sleep badly again. Was that love, or merely gratitude?

I had absolutely no trust in my capacity for love. My love was powerless and fainthearted.

Sometimes I’d be in London after an interview tour but wouldn’t tell Eddie. She didn’t deserve to be used as a pillow. During those nights I wouldn’t go home, as I used to, and I avoided the light and the echoing emptiness of my flat. Only when I could barely stand for fatigue, and the days and outlines of objects grew hazy, did I give in and go to her place. The key was always in the cavity.

THE LAST DAY begins with faint sunshine. An October day.

I watch Eddie dip her forefinger into the pan of milk on the stove to test if it’s already hot enough for her coffee. She has been doing this for so long that it’s now completely automatic, and she would check the temperature even if the milk were already boiling.

She turns around, and I quickly close my eyes. I’ve no idea why I do this because I could spend hours ogling her bare legs below her shirt, her furrowed brow, and her mouth as she blows on the milk. We often watch each other across the room, holding a conversation with our eyes, but this time I hide the fact that I’ve been observing her.

I’m scared of her expression today and what it might signal. Today.

I sense her shadow as she comes over to the bed and the slight cooling effect as it falls on my face. I can feel myself sliding into trouble, as if the bed were a grassy slope. It’s one of those days when life could go either way. I feel like throwing back the covers and inviting her to lie down beside me with her back against my tummy so that she won’t look at me or speak.

Eddie does speak, though. “I love you,” she says. “I want you forever and beyond, in this life and every other.”

I open my eyes and answer, “I don’t want you.”