A stranger crying at a table she was ready to leave.

Whatever he had thrown away, she had never once felt its absence, because I had made certain the space where he might have been was filled, every single day, with something better.

People sometimes ask me — the few who know the whole story — whether I worry that Lily will resent me one day for keeping her father out of her life.

And I understand the question, but it rests on a mistake, the same mistake Mike made at the table with his wallet open.