“As for me, I am a veteran godfather,” Stefan said, referring to my sister Phoebe’s baby Gus. “I would be happy to do it. I’m not sure I can offer guidance but I intend to excel at that one day. I’m very good at presents.”

Stefan also agreed to lean on Father Kanelos, who got so many compliments on the landscaping of the church that he would be helpless to refuse.

“You’re supposed to have family for this,” I reminded Becky.

She said, “Maybe that’s my choice. And maybe I do.”

That night, just days before the anniversary of Belinda’s death, Jill called out of the blue and asked to meet with Stefan and me, because, after much thought and prayer, she had decided to forgive him, and how could we refuse?

After her call, I stood on my porch in the dark and thought about where life had taken us, which felt something like a circle.

As Iris Murdoch said, human arrangements are nothing but loose ends, and time, like the sea, unties them all.

17

So what did I think would happen, people ask me. I don’t know the answer to that; I only know that, if you had given me ten tries to predict what did happen, not one of them would have come close.

When I talked things over with Julie, two days before we were to meet Jill, she implored me to stop thinking of this event as momentous. It was a formality, putting a frame around feelings already experienced, like marriage put a frame around love. After this meeting, nothing in Stefan’s life or mine would change. For his part, Stefan thought the request was impressive. He remembered, during his first nights out of prison, the strong desire he had to see Jill and talk to her—the desire that had led, in part, to The Healing Project. For Jill to do this, it seemed to him, was exceedingly brave and benevolent.

The date she set was the fourth anniversary of Belinda’s death, a Monday at three in the afternoon at the cemetery. It wouldn’t be dark yet, but, she said, and I agreed, a Monday was best because none of us needed an audience. Don’t share any of this with the press, she cautioned me, and I said that of course, I would not. “I don’t want there to be any perception that I don’t believe in the work of SAY,” she said. “I believe in that work more than ever, and I hope it goes on.”

I said, “I think it will, Jill.”

She said, “I am not so sure.”