“Yes.”
“You laughed and asked if it was my first time in Malta.”
“Yes.”
“You pretended we were strangers.”
“I was going to introduce myself and give you the envelope.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
“Why?”
He looked toward the harbor.
“Because you smiled at me.”
I waited.
“That sounds foolish now,” he said. “But you looked lost, then started laughing at yourself. I had spent months imagining you as a name on an envelope. Suddenly you were a person.”
“So you took me for coffee.”
“I told myself it was only coffee.”
“Then breakfast.”
“Yes.”
“Gozo.”
“Yes.”
“My final dinner.”
His voice dropped.
“Yes.”
Every memory changed as he admitted it.
The coffee that had felt spontaneous.
The ferry ride where he held my hand when the deck shifted.
The afternoon he bought me lemon ice and wiped sugar from my thumb.
The quiet moment beside the sea when he said he was glad I had said yes.
I had thought life brought us together.
David had recognized me.
Followed me.
Chose not to tell me why.
“You used me,” I said.
“At first, I wanted answers.”
“What answers?”
“I wanted to know whether Michael had ruined your life the way Ruth’s secret ruined mine.”
I stared at him.
“Did I look ruined?”
“No.”
“Did that disappoint you?”
His face twisted.
“At first? Maybe.”
The honesty was ugly but I appreciated it anyway.
David had spent six years believing his marriage to Ruth was honest.
Then, after her death, he found another life hidden inside it.
He came to Malta because this was where it began.
The first time, he sat at the restaurant for three hours and never ordered food.
He returned the following year.
Then again.
When he found Michael’s envelope addressed to me, he searched for a way to contact me.
Before he could decide what to do, Clara saw my daughter post about my trip online.
“Rebecca posted about Malta?”
“She wrote that she was proud of you for finally traveling alone.”
I closed my eyes.
That was how David knew where I would be.
“I didn’t know your hotel,” he said. “I didn’t know your schedule. Seeing you in that street truly was chance.”
“A convenient chance.”
“Yes.”
“Did Clara come here to stop you?”
“She came because I called her.”
“Why?”
“Because I was afraid I would ask you to stay.”
