Henry and I had plans to meet that afternoon in a park where we sat side by side under a tree to watch people as they passed by, and I was glad not to have to look at him because I feared I would faint, though I had never been that sort of woman, a fainting woman. In past relationships I’d been accused of being cold, of being distant, of never loving anyone as well as they had loved me. I’d never known what to make of those accusations, had never been able to discern my own coldness or distance, but as I sat there talking with Henry, his mere presence pressing me so firmly and warmly into the present, it became clear to me that this was it, this was love, and all those past partners had been right—I had never loved them. I must have believed love was something that arrived in your life and told you what to do with it.