I gave him a double portion.

Across the line, Julian did not smile like a man who had won an argument.

He looked like a husband who had waited for his wife to arrive at a place he could not drive her to.

At night Lucas sat in the guest suite that was no longer a charity and asked for stories about how I met Julian, about the first apartment before the firms, about whether I still burned garlic.

He did not want a wardrobe that apologized for twenty years.

He wanted breakfast.