“I have no idea.”

Judith wrapped both her hands around the mug, as though she was trying to draw the warmth out of it and into her palms. “Andrew wants to spend the rest of the school year here with me. He wants you to leave him alone while he thinks things through, sorts things out.”

“But I didn’t do anything to—”

She put up a hand. “This may come as a surprise to you, Henry, but I think it’s best if I don’t hear what you have to say. The truth is, you’ve become a memory to me, a figure from a previous chapter of my life—a previous volume. And I’d prefer not to change that now.” She paused. “The only thing I know is that we, you and I, could have done better by the boys. We should have spoken to them—both of them—when they were younger. We should have been open. It was a grave mistake in judgment. I see that now.”

Henry went home. In the cold, quiet kitchen, he picked up one of the chairs—a wooden chair—and in a rage smashed it to pieces, tearing off its legs and back and breaking its seat into two jagged wooden planks. The chair was broken and so was he. Broken, shattered—mystified. What had he done to deserve this punishment? Withheld some information from Costanza? Not told his sons the truth about their origins? Not—for the second time of his life—known the woman to whom he had entrusted his heart?

Costanza wrote that she had not known herself. Had he not known himself?

He had made two people close to him angry. He had disappointed them and he had hurt them. He’d made mistakes—he saw that—but did he deserve to be abandoned, to be left in the dark like this, to know nothing about his wife, their marriage, their future?

In the succeeding months Henry had had nothing else to go on. Nothing. Twice he ambushed Andrew after school; both times Andrew said he wasn’t ready to see him yet, and would he please go away. When Henry pleaded with Andrew to let him know, at least, if Costanza was all right, Andrew said that she was fine. That was all he said.