“You never told him,” she said.

“No, I didn’t.”

She picked up her fork and aimed it at my plate.

“Eat a peach before you go.

You look like you’re about to march straight into a wall.”

I ate the peach.

It was cold and sweet, and for a moment I was just a woman at a kitchen table with a friend.

Then my phone lit up with a call from the court clerk’s office.