I had not.

In two years, it had never once crossed my mind.

“Because I was frightened of her,” Renee said.

“She was twenty-two and I was twenty-five and I was already frightened of her, and I have been ever since, and that is the actual reason there was one card a year and it went to a man I barely knew.”

I stood at a gas pump in southern Indiana and could not say anything.

“She stayed,” Renee said.