And I was so out of practice at wanting anything from Hal that I fumbled even the asking, said it too casually while he was reading the paper — “we should go out to dinner sometime, just us” — and he looked up over his glasses with an expression I could not read, surprise and something warier under it, and said, “Sure.

If you want.” Which was not the response of a man leaping at his wife.

And I nearly let it drop right there, nearly retreated back into the safe cold silence, because a first reach that isn’t met is the most exposed thing in the world.

But I made myself say, “I do.

Friday.

I’ll make a reservation.” And I did.

And Friday came, and we sat across a restaurant table in clothes a little too nice, two people who no longer knew how to be alone together, and the first twenty minutes were an agony of the same logistics-talk we did at home, and I thought, this was a mistake, we’re too far gone.