“All right. There is someone I’ve been seeing, but it isn’t like that. We’ve had dinner, we’ve gone for walks in the middle of the day, I’ve called her from the phone booth at the supermarket, but that’s it. I don’t want to fuck up my life again, Janey. I don’t want to fuck up my marriage. I did that once and I’ve lived to regret it.”

This outpouring sounded so heartfelt, she didn’t know how to respond. The bitter envy she felt at learning that he just might have been faithful to Caroline all these years was tempered by his admission of regret over the mess he’d made of their marriage. “Well,” she said, perhaps too quietly. “So have I. Regretted your fucking things up.”

He put his heavy warm hand over hers, and she couldn’t help looking down and admiring those pearly fingernails and his big fat wedding band. “Tell Caroline not to worry. I’m not going to fuck up our marriage. Janey,” he said, and she looked up into his eyes. “You can help, you know. You can help me through this. That’s why I agreed to meet you here today. I knew what this was all about.”

She felt a certain amount of sympathy for poor old Dale, who at this moment looked ridiculous. She’d always liked him best when he’d just made a fool of himself or had the flu. “I don’t know how you expect me to stop you from sleeping with this girl.”

“She’s thirty-five. She’s married. Her husband’s a friend of mine. Tell me what’s wrong with me?”

“You’re a hopeless romantic and a shit. It’s a deadly combination. You’re over forty and getting restless. And your mick mother spoiled her darling prince rotten.” She reached up and ran her hand down his rough face. Definitely showing the signs of too much sun. In five years, he’d look like luggage, the expensive kind, but old. She gave his face a sharp little slap.

He took her hand in his and pressed her palm to his lips. He murmured something into her hand, but she couldn’t make out the words. Then he looked up at her and whispered, “You know me better than anyone.”

“That’s why I divorced you.”

“You know how much I’ve missed you, don’t you?”

“How much?”

He placed her hand against his chest, and through the thin, cool cotton of his shirt, she could feel the thump of his heart. “This much,” he said.