“?‘Once upon a time’?” she said again. Her voice was flat.
“Yes.”
“Like the beginning of a fairy tale?”
“Yes.”
“So,” she started, feeling winded by this information. “So...”
He laughed a miserable laugh.
“So, that’s not...”
“It’s not great, no.”
“It’s really not.”
More shrugging. Merritt’s eyes wandered away from Whit’s face, staring at nothing as her brain did some literary calculus. “It’s also what you say at thebeginningof a story. We’refourbooks in here—”
“I know!” Whit said, guilty, and then he looked relieved when a white-haired waitress appeared, wearing a denim shirt and a khaki apron tied at the waist.
“What can I get you two to drink?”
“A beer, please. Whatever IPA you have on tap is fine.”
Merritt recoiled again. Blech.
“And you?”
“Just a water, please.”
“I’m paying,” Whit half-whispered.
“And a cabernet,” she said immediately. The words “Once upon a time” were still ringing in her brain and she needed to rinse them out.
The waitress smiled. “I’ll have them right out, and I’ll bring some bread for the table.”
When she was out of earshot, Merritt leaned forward. “So, you have written—I’m sorry to be blunt—but you have written essentially nothing.”
“Correct.”
“For a whole year.”
“Yes.”
“What have you beendoingfor the last twelve months?”
“Well,” he said, dropping his eyes to the menu again, “grieving the loss of my wife and adjusting to the reality of a world without her.”
Oh, shit. Shit shit shit. This was the second time she had said something like this to him. The second time she had alluded, accidentally but still very insensitively, to his wife’s death. The first time, in the library, when she so casually suggested that her mother woulddieto read the annotated copy ofThe Door in the Garden Wall, she had decided not to apologize, believing that it was more respectful to treat Whit as a mature person who understood how idioms worked. But now...
“Of course. Of course you have... I’m so sorry.”
He rubbed a flat hand over the paper menu, drawing and redrawing a large, meaninglessL. But then he lifted his eyes, smiled, and laughed the barest zephyr of a laugh.
“It’s okay. That’s not fair of me to do.”
“No—”
