11:32 P.M.

IN RESPONSE TO MY SUGGESTION of good-bye, Tobias pushes back his chair and stands up. He doesn’t say anything, just walks over to the window. Conrad raises his eyebrow at me, but Jessica is already up. She follows Tobias over to the window and they stand next to each other. I find Audrey’s eyes across the table. They tell me to stay put, and so I do.

I don’t much feel like talking. The others linger in silence now. The waiter is clearing our last remaining plates. Audrey is asking for some more water. He hands me the check, and despite Conrad’s protestations I give my credit card. I want to pay. It’s my dinner party, after all.

I look up at the clock. The second hand ticks steadily, like a soldier marching into war. I have a memory, like the flash of a camera, of my father singing to me when I was a baby, stomping around the kitchen.

I left my wife and forty-eight children alone in the kitchen in starving condition with nothing to eat but gingerbread. Left. Left. Left, right, left.

It’s not until I hear my father that I realize I’m singing out loud. He starts in with me. Left. Left. Left, right, left.

Then Conrad joins in. His big, bellowing voice fills the restaurant, and I’m glad we’re alone at this point, save the dish washers and our waiter. Audrey pipes in, too, and the four of us chant on together.

“This is an awful nursery rhyme when you think about it,” Audrey says, breaking out of rhythm.

“Particularly for me,” Robert says. “Although I do fondly remember teaching it to you.”

“They all are,” Conrad says. “‘Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary’ is about the homicidal nature of Queen Mary.”

“And the one with the well,” Audrey says.

“The well?” Conrad says. “I’m not aware of one about a well.”

Audrey frowns. “I feel a little unsteady,” she says. “Must be all the wine.” She glances up at the clock on the wall, and I feel something squeeze in my stomach. I look over at Jessica and Tobias. There’s no time, there’s no time, there’s no time.

I can’t stand it any longer. I stand up and walk over to them.

“How’s it going over here?” I ask.

Jessica looks at Tobias. “Well, he’s dead, and it appears he’s going to remain that way, so not great.”

Tobias starts to laugh then. It’s been so long since I’ve heard his laugh. Longer, by far, than the time he’s been gone.

Jessica puts her hand on my shoulder. “I’m still here,” she says. “We’ll work it out, we have the time.” She squeezes my shoulder, taps Tobias on the chest, and goes back to the table.

“I wish I could take you away from here,” he says. He’s looking out the window, not at me. At the passing taxis and a few lingering people on the sidewalk. Outside the city spins, unaware.

“Where would we go?” I ask.

“Maybe down to the West Side Highway,” he says. “We could walk along the water.”

“Not far enough,” I say. I go to stand shoulder to shoulder with him.

“You’re right. We never got to go to Mexico, or Paris, or Guam,” he says. “I regret that.”

“Don’t,” I say. “No more regrets.”

I put my head on his shoulder.

“What’s going to happen to me now?” he asks. I turn to look at him, and I see the fear dancing just around the perimeter.

“I don’t know,” I say. “I wish I did. I don’t think you’ll be where you were, though. I think you’ll be…” My voice catches, and in the space he answers.

“Gone,” he says.

My cheeks are wet. I haven’t stopped crying. “There isn’t any more time.”

He nods. His eyes are wet, too. “I’m so sorry,” he says. “We were so good at being together but so bad at the rest of it.”

“The rest of it was important,” I say. “I think more than we realized.”

He nods. “Were we always going to end up here?” he asks.

I think about the decade we spanned, the entirety of it splayed out before us tonight.

“I don’t know,” I say. “But we did. I think that’s what matters now.”

He takes my face in his hands. “I love you,” he says. “Always.”

Meant to be. I used to think that about us. That we were meant to be. That the stars had aligned to bring us together. It never occurred to me that our fate might not be forever.