“I was so angry with you,” she said.

“I know.” I was pleased she had used the past tense. “I screwed up.”

“Not just about April,” she said. “I’ve been angry for years. You’ve just never been here.”

I listened. Before I might have become defensive, perhaps even hurt, but not now. She poured the tea. She was thirty years older than she was when we first met. She was slightly heavier. Her face was interestingly lined. Her hair was mostly gray. She had never been more beautiful than she was as she poured that tea. And I loved her. I understood that I had always loved her and I was so sad that I had never allowed her to feel that love.