I need a drink. To be honest, I’d been thinking the same thing well before I heard someone say it. I wanted a drink before going back to the apartment, before going to bed. I had decided to walk back from the campus, as I had walked there (it was less than a mile), and I knew that along the way I’d be passing several places where a drink—a glass of wine was what I wanted—could be had. But I was a stranger in that town and unsure where, if anywhere, I’d be comfortable having a drink by myself.

Every place I looked was too crowded or too noisy or seemed, for some other reason, uninviting. A feeling of loneliness and disappointment came over me. It was a familiar feeling. I thought of a woman I knew who had started carrying her own flask. I was ready to give up when I remembered that there was a café on the corner of my host’s street that had been empty when I passed it earlier and where, I had noticed, wine was served.

Now, of course, the café was not empty. But from the street I could see that, though all the tables seemed to be taken, there were places to sit at the bar.

I went in and sat down. I had a moment’s panic because the bartender, a young man with the kind of ornate tattoos and facial hair that make me think of a conversation piece, ignored me, even though he was not just then attending to anyone else. I took out my phone, that reliable prop, and spent a few moments tickling it.

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens.

At last the bartender sauntered over (so I had not become see-through) and took my order. At last I had my drink. Red wine: one of my favorite things. It would be easier, with a glass, to gather my thoughts, after a long hard day that had given me much to think about. But immediately I was distracted by a conversation taking place at a table right behind me. Two people whom, unless I turned around, I couldn’t see. I did not turn around. But I soon got the gist of their story.

A father and daughter. The mother was dead. She had died a year ago after a long struggle with an illness. They were a Jewish family. The time had come for the unveiling. The daughter had traveled from somewhere out of town for the ceremony. The father kept his voice low, just above a mumble. The daughter spoke louder and louder until—partly because for some reason the bartender kept turning up the music—she was almost shouting.

It was so hard for your mother.

I know, Dad.

What she went through.

I know. I was there.

She was brave, though. But no one could be that brave.