“Good,” she said. “So—what happened with your wife?”

“Well.” He thought for a moment and then grinned, suddenly looking years younger. “I guess the honest answer to that is that I miss being asked the questions much more than I miss having to answer them.”

“Oh.” That made sense, she thought; she had not cared to tell him why she had just nearly walked in front of a car, and nor had he pressed her.

“It’s kind of a long story,” he said. “I might tell you about it one day, when you have an hour or two to spare. But you can ask other questions if you want. You look like you have quite a few of them in your head right now.”

“Just one, if that’s okay,” she said. “Was one of you … unfaithful?”

“Hmm.” He frowned, reached for sugar, and added it to his tea, seeming to forget that he had already done so. “‘Unfaithful’ is sort of a tricky word, because most people take it to mean adultery, and there are many other ways of being unfaithful than by having an affair. Obviously, one of us did break faith with the other, or we’d still be married, I guess.” He stirred his tea and then looked up at Lulu. “I don’t want to pry,” he said. “But I’m kind of guessing that someone has broken faith with you today, am I right?”

“I think they have,” she said. Yes, her father, whatever he had done or not done, had quite clearly broken some faith with her mother; now that she thought about it, he had definitely broken faith with her, too. “Yes, I’m sure they have.”

“Tough.” He nodded sympathetically. “I’m sorry for you.”

“What do you do?” she asked him. “When someone breaks your faith?”

“Well, it’s a difficult one,” he said. “It’s going to hurt for a while, and you just have to know that and steel yourself to hang in there till it gets better. It does get better, though, so long as you haven’t broken any faith yourself. I always feel that if you can look yourself in the eye, most things do get better.”

It was surprisingly easy, she thought, talking to this strange and quiet man almost a generation removed from her: easier by far than talking to many boys of her own age.

“This person,” she said, “who’s broken faith with me. Will they be able to look themselves in the eye afterwards?”

“Whoa.” He puffed air through his cheeks. “As many answers to that as there are people in the world and situations between them. It depends on how badly they’ve broken faith, I guess, and how well they deal with it, or don’t deal with it, afterwards. The only person you can be in control of is you. And in the end, that’s the only person whose conscience you have the right to care about.”

“Okay,” she said. She thought. “That makes sense, actually,” she added.