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‘To listen to music.’

‘Put a few things away while you do,’ he said. ‘Deal?’

She did not dignify his question with a reply, although she did give Mary a small – really, the minimum possible – hug as she passed her. It was like manna from the gods.

‘So,’ Mary said, when she was gone. ‘There was another one.’

Ryan had a glass of wine halfway to his mouth. He set it back down, his smile falling from his lips.

‘Another note?’

She nodded.

‘What did it say?’

She walked over to him and passed him the folded paper. ‘See for yourself.’

She watched him read it. Watched the slight frown and narrowing of his eyes. When he was done he looked up at her.

‘This is fucked up.’

‘It is. I don’t know what to make of it.’

He put the note down. ‘Me neither.’

‘Where shall we start?’ she said. ‘With the questions?’

‘Why did I marry you?’ He smiled. ‘Why do you think?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Yes, you do.’ He frowned. ‘If it wasn’t for this note and I asked you why you thought I’d wanted to marry you, you’d have had an answer. So why do you think?’

‘Because you love me.’

‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘Even though you wondered why at the time. I had some work to do to persuade you.’

‘Which is also in the note,’ Mary said.

‘And which is not news to either of us. We talked at the time about where you were at in your life and why you were cautious. So this note tells us nothing new.’

‘It’s weird the author knows that I had doubts.’

‘They could be guessing?’

‘How would they guess that?’

He shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

‘And what about the question? About the real reason? What does that mean?’

‘I don’t know that, either, because there is no real reason. I fell in love with you. That’s all.’

She took a deep breath. ‘And Sandra? Who is she?’

She had a horrible, empty feeling that he was about to confess to an affair, that she was about to find out that their relationship was over, that he didn’t want or need her any more, that it was all built on a lie.

‘I only know one Sandra,’ he said. ‘And I hardly know her. She works at the Little Cat Café. I go down there to write sometimes and I occasionally chat with her.’