We sat in the living room while afternoon rain tapped against the windows.

“I didn’t mean to make you feel like a stranger,” he said.

I answered gently, “You told your child I was somebody at the wrong house.

That’s exactly what you did.” He nodded and rubbed his hands together.

He had read my letter twice, he said.

The hardest part was the question about whether he would want me at his table if I could no longer pay.

“I was angry because I didn’t know how to answer,” he confessed.