“It’s a contradiction, I know. I guess I want at least to be able to look my grandchildren in the eye when they’re old enough to ask me where were you, what did you do. And even if I know there’s no longer any hope of waking up idiot humanity in time, why shouldn’t they have to hear the truth? Why shouldn’t they at least have to think, if only for the time it takes to read an article or listen to a talk, about their own monstrous stupidity and the evil they might have stopped but didn’t. The truth is, every time I see a newborn now my heart sinks. I feel terribly angry but also terribly guilty all the time. I’m doing what I’m doing now because I didn’t do more before. I wasted my life on things that, no matter how important seeming at the time, turned out to have been trivial.”

“And you say that you can’t—or won’t—forgive others, but you want forgiveness for yourself.”

“Yes. From them. I want my grandchildren to forgive me.”

At that moment a woman wearing a canvas twin carrier, one infant on her bosom, the other on her back, entered the restaurant—a sight that my ex, sitting with his back to the door, was thankfully spared.

“All that said,” he said, “that was one delicious croissant.”

One of your favorite things, I said without speaking.

And you always went for the chocolate ones, he nevertheless said back.

Only now did the conversation turn to my friend.

“I know she never liked me,” he said. “Whenever we were in the same room, I could feel it. But I respected her. She was a good journalist. Sorry to be using the past tense.”

“She wouldn’t mind,” I said, certain that this was so.

“I’ve never had any doubt that she’s doing the right thing,” he said. “It’s what I’d hope to be strong enough to do in her place. And you’re doing the right thing too—and a really brave thing, in my opinion,” he added. “But I can’t imagine what you must be going through.”

And how could I ever describe it?

I told him the story of how my friend had left the pills behind and we’d had to drive all the way back.

“I shouldn’t laugh,” he said.

“She wouldn’t mind,” I told him again.