“Only because I don’t know what to look for. I don’t want to punish you. You gave me a scare. I don’t want you getting sick again.”

“No, no, I won’t do that. Her name is Norma?”

“I thought you knew that.”

“Colin’s mother never said her name. It’s ugly. Mine is bad enough, but hers is terrible. Does she have a nickname?”

“No.”

“You want me to get back on the subject,” she said.

“Not until you’re completely ready.”

“All right. I do want a moment.” She smoked the cigarette and looked around the room. He finished his coffee, not watching her, and then she put out the cigarette.

“The hard thing is keeping my perspective. I can tell you the truth, that I know that he did love me at one time, but then I start forgetting what happened afterward. I don’t dare. I have to contrast what it was with what it became. I’m still living in a dream. What could you call it, when a woman of my age is waiting for her life to begin?” She paused. “I’m beginning to lose my taste for your company,” she said. “I don’t often speak this way about myself.”

“I think you’re being unnecessarily severe,” he said.

“I wanted you to say something like that.” She ticked the spoon in her saucer with her fingernail. “I have to stop it. I’m only making things worse.” She took a breath and sat up straighten.

“I loved him, but I didn’t even know how to show him I wanted to love him. There were other men who had come back from the war, but there was something special about him. He seemed glad to be alive; it shone in his eyes. I thought he was the handsomest man I had ever seen. I’ll never forget the effect that looking at him had on me. I am older now and I’ve seen many more men, but none of them have had the physical impact he had.

“I’ve learned that I’m drawn to fair, light-skinned, light-eyed men. Latin lovers appall me. You’re attractive to me even though you’re dark, but I know you. Your face is marked now, but I remember when it wasn’t. That picture of you in the newspaper in 1940 showed a very young man who was bleeding and frightened, and when I look at you I see him as well as all the years between. That helps explain the things that were in my mind when I dressed myself today.