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I didn’t want to force Don and Cheri to be middlemen in our dispute. I decided to stop trying to call as well. Blair would get in touch with me when he was ready.
    Days passed. I put in long hours at the magazine trying to get caught up, and went home to solitary meals, followed by marathons of long-postponed letter-writing. I began to see that by talking myself into believing I was in love with Blair, I had given up some parts of my life that I enjoyed. He strove to fill every hour of every weekend with social activities. While I enjoyed getting to know him and his friends, I had done so at the expense of staying in touch with my distant friends and my family. I was usually too tired to write them on weeknights after work. I sensed early that Blair resented any time I spent on private matters on the weekends, when he knew I was free to spend my time with him.
    Talked myself into believing I was in love with him. Yes, that was an accurate description of what I had done, and I had pursued the illusion by quitting a good job, leaving all my friends and family and moving halfway across the country. Now that the fairy tale was ending, I regretted placing so little value on all that was good about my life.

    Two weeks after my car broke down and Blair made himself scarce, he called.
    “We need to talk, Cassie.” His voice sounded cold. “Would you meet me at Kelly’s for coffee?”
    An hour later, I entered the venerable old bar and grill that had become one of our haunts and got a table in one of the bow windows.
    I sipped coffee as I waited. The usual Friday night activities in the midwestern college town went on around me as dusk fell and the street lights brightened, casting yellow pools on the street and sidewalk. After about forty-five minutes, I saw Blair’s car pass. He parked and hurried toward the door. I waved him over when he entered. His flustered look and beads of sweat on his brow told me that his plans had gone wrong, and I felt relieved. My mental picture of him sitting in his easy chair with his feet propped on the ottoman, looking at his watch and chortling vengefully because it was my turn to wait, faded.
    “I’m sorry, Cassie,” he said. “Just as I was climbing into the car, there was a wreck down the street. It blocked the intersection and I couldn’t get out until ten minutes ago!” Blair’s street was a cul-de-sac.
    “Was anyone hurt?”
    “One of the passengers was bleeding from a cut on her head. She didn’t want anyone to call the paramedics; said she would go to the emergency room.”
    The waitress came and filled the coffee cup she placed for Blair earlier and freshened mine. When she left, I began, “I am sorry I stood you up two weeks ago, Blair. I would never have done that to you on purpose.”
    “I know.” He was looking down at his hands, idle on the tablecloth. I watched him through the steam from my cup and waited. “I found out tonight how easily it can happen.”
    I frowned. “Blair, tell me something. Before this evening, have your plans ever gone wrong, because of circumstances you couldn’t control, so that other people were inconvenienced?”
    He thought for a moment. “No. I may have forgotten, but I think tonight is the first time this has ever happened to me.”
    “Not even when you were a kid?”
    “No, I truly don’t remember this ever happening before.”
    “You seem to have led a very simple life.” Or maybe, I thought, he hadn’t done enough in his life for many things to go wrong. Or maybe—and this thought chilled me—he controlled all the aspects of his life so firmly that things rarely had a chance to go wrong. “Anyway,” I went on, “you said you wanted to talk.”
    “Yes.” He finally tasted his coffee, then put the cup down. He appeared to be thinking very hard. “I was really angry when you didn’t show up or call that evening, Cassie, so angry I could barely think. I know— ” he raised a hand as if to delay my protest, but I