As we agreed, Fifi meets me for brunch at a downtown bistro. As soon as she appears, I can tell she’s pissed. She spots me sitting at a table near the back and strides toward me with her hands on her hips, before slapping her purse down on the table and taking a seat, dramatically crossing one leg over the other and raising her eyebrows, waiting for an explanation.

“Hi, Fifi.”

“Cole. About time you called. I didn’t know that grown men still did the ghosting thing.”

“It’s not like that.”

She jerks her attention away when the waitress arrives, ordering an iced tea with lemon and a salmon and cream cheese bagel. I ask for an espresso.

“In a rush?” Fifi asks scathingly.

“Just not hungry.”

Fifi sits back and fixes me with a stern stare. When I don’t speak straight away, she lifts her hands in frustration. “Don’t keep me hanging. I know you’re here to give me ‘the talk.’ Honestly, you don’t need to drag it out. It was like three dates.”

I’m surprised that she’s picked up on the vibe of the conversation so quickly, but also relieved as it saves me having to let her down gently. “I’m sorry,” is all I say.

She holds up a hand. “It’s fine. We met on Tinder and slept together on the first date. It’s not like I expected a wedding band and three kids. Out of interest, though, what is it? You met someone else?”

“Something like that.”

The waitress arrives with our order, and Fifi picks apart her bagel, looking at me across her food.

“We’re here until I finish this bagel, so you might as well tell me. I promise I won’t cause a scene. When you didn’t reply to my voicemails for days, I got the hint.”

“I reconnected with my ex-wife.”

“You’re divorced?”

“It was a six-week marriage when I was twenty-three.”

“Still, you ought to give people full disclosure.” She licks some cream cheese off her finger. “Did you run into her or something?”

“Actually, it’s a funny story.”

I explain to Fifi what happened, and, to my surprise, she bursts into giggles. “Are you serious? That’s hilarious. So, what? You two are back together now?”

I shake my head. “No. She walked out on me in the bar. She was hostile, to be honest.”

“Oh.” She frowns. “Why so happy to drop me, then?”

I let out a long breath. I don’t know why I’m explaining all this to Fifi.

“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her since I saw her again. Things ended between us too soon, and for all the wrong reasons. I’m not sure I can simply walk away again a second time.”

“And what does she want?”

I glance across at Fifi, who has gotten over our “break-up” pretty quickly and is tuned into the conversation like it’s the latest episode of Keeping up with the Kardashians.

“She wants me to disappear off the face of the earth and never bother her again. She got the raw deal in the marriage, and I don’t think she’s over it.”

“You think it’s wise to stir things up for her again?”

“What would you do? I mean, I’m not a guy who believes in fate, but what else can you call it? I reconnect with her by mistake, and she’s still single? It’s like the universe is giving me a second chance.”

Fifi smiles. “Maybe if we hadn’t jumped into bed so quickly, I could have got to see this romantic side of you, too. She’s a lucky girl, even if she doesn’t know it yet.” She swallows the last bite of her bagel and slowly stands. “Don’t screw it up again.” She squeezes my shoulder as she passes. “It was fun while it lasted.”

* * *

After brunch with Fifi, I head for my weekly visit with my dad. He still lives in the same downtown duplex I grew up in. Even the furnishings are the same, down to the faded corduroy curtains and well-worn salmon carpet.

Dad shuffles to the door when I knock and lets me in. He’s doing pretty well for sixty-nine, although his knees are failing. He walks with a cane now. He says it makes him look too old; I tell him he looks distinguished.

He ushers me into the family room and asks me if I want a lemonade.

“Sure.”

He brings me in a drink and settles down into his old brown recliner, resting his cane against the arm of the chair. He adjusts his glasses on his face, bows his head, and fixes me with a knowing stare. “You look like you have something on your mind, son.”

“I ran into Sophie again.”

Dad’s eyes widen, and he leans forward. “Sophie! How is she? My God, how long has it been? Eight, nine, years?”

“Ten.”

“Ten years. She was a lovely girl, Cole. It was such a shame it ended the way it did.”

I’ve heard the same spiel from Dad for years, and from my mother too before she passed. They both adored Sophie.

“How did you run into her again?”

“It’s kind of a long story. To cut it short, our paths crossed on a dating app. Sort of.”

“You matched on one of those love connection sites?”

“Actually, we didn’t match at all.” I explain how I accidentally messaged Sophie instead of Sophia, leaving out the part about the nature of the texts. “She agreed to meet up with me, and we caught up a while.”

“That’s great news!”

I frown. “Not so much. She took off before we could really talk. I think it was still a bit too raw for her.”

“I’m not surprised. If I had left your mother to go waltzing off to some third-world country with my camera, she would have shown me the door, too.”

“You know why I went on that mission. It was important.”

“‘Mission!’” Dad scoffs. “You always did think of yourself as James Bond.”

I roll my eyes. “You and Mom never did get it.”

“Oh, we got it, son. You were passionate about what you did. The problem is, once you take a wife, you’ve got to save something for her.” Dad shifts in his chair, and I can tell from the way he’s getting comfy that he’s going to launch into some long tale.

“When I first met your mother, I was crazy about football. I was constantly on the field or with my team. When I wasn’t in a game, I was practicing. Drove your mother nuts.”

I’ve heard this story a thousand times before, but I know better than to interrupt him. I lean back and settle in.

“I was good at football. So good, in fact, that I won a scholarship to a college across the state. And you know what I did?”

You turned it down to stay with Mom because she was caring for her sick mother and couldn’t leave the state.

“No. What did you do, Dad?”

“I turned it down to stay with your mom because she was caring for her sick mother and couldn’t leave the state. By the time your grandma passed, the offer was off the table. I gave up my football career to be there for your mother.”

“And you’ve talked about nothing but how you could have been a football star ever since!” I say pointedly.

“That may be, but I’d do it all over again.” He clears his throat with a cough and shuffles in his chair again, leaning on one elbow and wagging a finger at me sternly. “Careers end all the time, but the love of a good woman is for life.” He nods wisely and looks up at me from under his eyebrows. “Sophie was a good woman.”

“I know that.”

“Do you? She was so loyal to you. You were a fool to leave her waiting for you like that. You could have had a good life photographing other things like you do now. Instead, you sought your own glory.”

“It wasn’t about glory. It was about doing something significant with my life.”

Dad raises his hand. “Well, let’s not dig too deeply into all that now. What’s done is done. Are you going to see her again?”

“I don’t think she’d want to see me.”

“You’re seeing that other woman anyway, aren’t you? The one with the similar name.”

“Fifi. Sophia.” I shake my head. “I’ve just come from breaking up with her.”

“Why did you do that?”

I lift up my hands and let them drop, leaning into the arm of the sofa and drumming my fingers against the fabric.

Dad smiles. “To me, that says everything you need to know. You still have feelings for Sophie. Now, all that newspaper stuff is behind you, you can finally see what you gave up. Am I right?”

“Even if you are, there’s nothing I can do about it now.”

“Obviously you think there’s still a chance, or you wouldn’t have broken up with this other girl.”

“There was no point being with Fifi if all I could think about was Sophie.”

“She’s still single, Sophie?”

“Still single, and still working for that bank.”

Dad shakes his head slowly. “Such a loyal girl,” he repeats. “You know she took that job for you.”

My stomach twists with guilt. Hindsight makes me realize all the mistakes I’ve made. “The idea was she’d go to college after I got my full-time post.”

“Unfortunately, it’s too easy to get trapped in a job.” Dad stretches in his chair, folding his hands across each other on his lap. He nods slowly. “If she’s still available, I don’t see the harm in seeing her again. I mean, she must have still felt something to have shown up at that bar in the first place.”

“I told you, Dad, she didn’t know it was me. She thought it was someone else she’d been talking to.”

“But she stayed?”

“For a while.”

“Then it’s not hopeless.” He stares at me intently. “She was so good for you, Cole. If I were you, I’d do whatever it takes to get her back. Flowers, dinner, the works. Make sure she knows that you know how badly you screwed up. Take her out—and whatever you do, leave that damn camera at home.”