The first time I saw Hen was from a distance. It’s the clearest memory I have, the most intense, and the one I recall most often these days. I’ve been thinking about it a lot since Terrance’s visit, playing it over and over in my mind.

No one else was around when I saw her. It was just the two of us. She looked so small. That was the first thing I noticed about her. I stopped what I was doing and I watched her. I cleared my head of other thoughts. I wanted to begin again.

It was summer, and bright, so I found some shade. I was thirsty but didn’t have any water with me. I’d been moving for a while, hours upon hours, and I still had a ways to go. We were young then, kids, her especially. There wasn’t much daylight left, and the weather was humid. Enough to make you slow down, enough to make it hard to think. She was wearing a white T-shirt with the sleeves cut off. She had her hair up in a loose bun with strands that had drifted down around her face. I sat in the dirt under a tree, on my haunches, resting my elbows on my thighs.

I didn’t recognize her, and that surprised me. In a good way. Who was she? I wanted to know. I needed to know. It wasn’t just that she was unfamiliar. That was part of it, but that’s not why I sat in the dirt and stayed there, under that tree, waiting, looking at her. This is what I’d been waiting for. This was it.

I lit a cigarette. I pushed my hair up, off my forehead. It was damp, sweaty. I inhaled the smoke. I remember lying down then on my back. I stayed like that for a while, looking up at the leaves and shadows, branches and sky above them. Smoking. The whole moment was moving together, and I wasn’t focused on any one part. She was beyond it all. But she was there. I didn’t wave.

We didn’t even talk that day. Not a word. There was no acknowledgment between us, but I felt a connection. I was on the other side of the road. I was alone. I thought I was alone. Until I saw her. She had no idea of her impact. She was oblivious. That was the power she had over me. Even then.

Seeing her made me question what I was doing, what I wanted, what I desired, what I could do. Not just in the moment. But what I had been doing that led me to this point, why I was there, out in the sun, my hands dirty and sore. My whole life, I could not remember anyone’s name. Nothing had made a formative impact on me. But right then I thought that might change. If I knew her name, I would remember it. That’s what she did, even before we’d met—she changed things. There she was, preoccupied, bent down, oblivious, washing her hands in a puddle on the side of the road. I knew she was the one. I was meant for her. I saw her, and right then, my life began.

Are some things meant to be, meant to happen? There are some things we can’t explain. Some call it fate. Maybe that’s okay. Maybe we don’t have to know more than that. Maybe the orbit we inhabit is preordained. I’m okay with it even if I don’t really believe in that kind of thing. You can hold beliefs and not always believe in them.

Later, I started to think about all the other possibilities that could have played out, how things could have gone a different way. Would I have seen her another way, at another time? On another day? Is any of this inevitable? You hear it all the time—meant to be. Was this the one and only chance? Make it or break it? Fate, or just coincidence? Was this the one opportunity? For me to see her, to take notice, to remember, to recall?

I had seriously considered taking another route. I can’t even remember why I was on that exact stretch of road. I didn’t have to be. Our fate seems as it should. We have found a way together, our way. We have developed and refined a relationship. Predictable, stable, certain, normal, routine, lifelike. One day ends, another starts. Over and over. It’s a comforting rhythm.

I’m not an observant person. I see what I see, and the rest doesn’t matter. What’s the point? Why bother taking notice of everything going on around you, filling up your mind with irrelevant details and excess information? What’s going to happen will happen regardless. Awareness is beside the point.

I wonder what Hen would say if I asked her about the day we met. Would she remember it? I don’t know. And I’m not sure I want to know. But I wonder. The majority of our days blur together and don’t leave us with distinct memories. Maybe one day I’ll have the nerve to ask her.

She still has that white T-shirt with the sleeves cut off that she was wearing when I first saw her. I never told her its significance to me. She rarely wears it. I notice when she does. I’m glad that she doesn’t wear it much, that it sits in her drawer. The more she wears it, the more she has to wash it, and the more she washes it, the more worn out it’ll get. The material is already thin and frayed. It’s stupid, I know, but I don’t want her to wear out that shirt completely. I want it to last.