7:52 P.M.

“HISTORY,” CONRAD SAYS, TAPPING HIS PEN against the table. “It’s an interesting choice.”

“I was a history teacher,” Robert says.

“Seriously?” I say.

Robert fixes his gaze on his water glass. “For ten years,” he says.

Conrad claps his hands together. “Wonderful!” he says. “Jump on in. You can get us started.”

“We should choose a focus,” Audrey says. “What era? American? European? This is far too wide.”

“Personal,” Tobias says next to me. It feels like the first thing he’s said since we sat down, even though I know it’s not; we went over the crudo, and then there was love.

I close my eyes. I open them. One thing at a time. “Where?” I ask Robert.

“Sherman Oaks,” he says.

“California.”

He nods. “My wife—”

“No.” I cut him off. I don’t want to hear about his wife. Or his kids. Or his other life.

“We were in Fresno,” I say. “Mom only moved back to Philly ten years ago. All that time…”

“I didn’t know,” Robert says.

“Yes,” I say. “And yet you never thought to come back, to check on us, to even ask? You never thought maybe you owed us some of your newfound good fortune?”

Audrey smiles and leans forward. “Friends,” she says. “Let’s keep it civil.”

“Why?” I ask. My eyes are fired up, but when they land on her soft, brown ones I find myself melting backward.

“Because we haven’t even gotten our starters yet,” she quips. “And no one is going anywhere.”

“I didn’t know you’d died until six months after,” I say. “Six months.”

“I got what I deserved,” he says.

“Don’t say that,” Tobias interjects. He’s staring at Robert with a mixture of benevolence and some kind of intensity I can’t place, and I realize, like so many times before, I don’t know what he means. Whether he’s being sympathetic or challenging.

“Look,” Jessica says. “Food.”

Three waiters appear with our starters. I instantly regret the salad. It looks like a piece of modern art. Sprigs of microgreens intercepting shavings of Parmesan. I wonder if Tobias will give me some of his crudo. He used to do that—put food on my plate without my asking.

“I would very much like to explain what happened,” Robert says when everyone’s starter has been set down.

“We’re still in history,” Conrad says. “I think that would be fine.”

I look across the table at him, and he raises his eyebrows at me. “What?” he says. “Is this all to talk about the weather?”

I shake my head. It’s not a yes or no—more like a giving in.

“Go ahead,” Audrey says. “We’re all listening.”

“I never had the chance to say good-bye,” he starts. “She kicked me out. Your mother never wanted me to come back.”

“You were a drunk,” I say.

I lift a sprig of greenery off my plate and put it in my mouth. It tastes like sand.

“I was,” he says. “Marcie wanted to have another baby. She wanted this whole life I couldn’t give her.”

“So you went and gave it to someone else?”

“I got help,” Robert says.

“That’s good,” Conrad interjects. “A man should be marked by his ability to grow.”

Life is growth. If we stop growing, we are as good as dead.

“Not all change is growth,” Audrey says. I look up at her. I feel like thanking her.

“I disagree.” This from Tobias. “The mere act of taking a chance, of changing, is by definition an act of evolution. And when we evolve, we grow. And that’s the point.”

“Of what?” I ask.

“Human existence,” Jessica says next to me. She spoons some tomato bisque into her mouth and then waves her hand back and forth across her lips in reaction to its heat.

I give her a weary look. Sometimes I wish she would just, no questions asked, be on my side.

“I’m not saying what I did was right,” Robert says. “But it was necessary. It was the only course of action. I had to leave.”

“Necessity,” Conrad repeats, but that’s it.

“I was five years old,” I say.

“I had to get help. I couldn’t change in the present circumstance. It wasn’t your mother’s fault. It just … didn’t work.”

“And later?” I asked. “What about then? Why didn’t you ever come back once you got better?”

“Because,” he says. “I met her. And then I was afraid.”

No one asks of what. We know. Losing the new life. Losing health. Losing her. Everything he had already lost didn’t factor in.

“It’s going to take more than one dinner,” I say.

“But Sabrina,” Robert says, looking directly at me for the first time since we sat down. “One dinner is all we’ve got.”