“If that’s what you wanted, compromise, you would have taken any of the countless opportunities before now. You don’t believe it, and are trying to convince yourself. But you can’t, because it’s too bleak.” She draped the jacket over her arm. “If we were meant to have more we would have it by now.”

“So we were just—”

“Having fun.” She smiled dimly, and took my arm again. “I thought we agreed to that.”

We had walked down to the East River by then, and were beneath the Manhattan Bridge, where the air was cool and the fishermen were casting lures under the high moon into the black river. We leaned over the rail, watching them awhile, as I became aware we were on an island in a way I had not appreciated moments before.

“You will find whatever you’re looking for,” she said. “We both will.”

“Yes,” I answered, not wanting to drag it out any further. “When you are ready for what you seek, it reveals itself, I guess.”

“Is that a theory?”

“I guess.”

“So you don’t want to continue?” she asked, her coolness giving way to a vulnerable coil of uncertainty and analysis — what I said I wanted, what I really wanted without admitting it, what I was projecting; how she responded to that projection, what she desired, her relationship to her own want — like a complex math problem we knew we would never manage to solve. She took the jacket from her arm and handed it to me again.

I should have taken it and gone home, except the liquor, her guilelessness when she let down her guard, the sheer beauty of her dark face, and the pleasure in hearing the emotion beneath her intelligence when she opened the microphone inside her head to me, all reminded me what had attracted me to her in the beginning, and betrayed my resolve.

“It wasn’t so bad a time, was it?” she asked, still holding out the coat and looking across the length of her arms with a tenderness that surprised me.

“No,” I said. “We had a lovely time.”

“I don’t have any regrets. Do you?”

“No,” I said. “It’s just—”

“Shh. Don’t say anything.” She put her finger to my lips. “Let’s go back to your place and have breakup sex.”

“We shouldn’t.”

“Well, at least kiss me goodbye.”

I began trying to explain why we should not, but she planted her mouth on mine.

When our lips parted it seemed to me that her feelings ran deeper, that there was doubt, and it provoked a greater empathy for her as I imagined I saw her human ache.

We found ourselves in bed again. There was, whatever else, a bond between us to remember.

She rose the next morning and dressed with a distant indifference that made clear it was the end of the affair, and not the uncertainty of other mornings after a hard night. I found myself hoping aloud we would remain friends, but stopped as soon as I realized I was making one of those pro forma statements that ring false even when sincere.

“You mean in case I change my mind. I won’t,” she said. “I like that we were always honest with each other. Even in what we did not say. Don’t change that now. We will not be friends. If you decide you want what I want, you can call me. Otherwise you should delete my number. It’s easier that way. Let go the past. Always. Even if it hurts. I always thought we respected that about each other.”

I nodded. “I always appreciated what we had. I want more now. As you said, we were honest.”

“Oh, Harper, we didn’t have claims on each other. That was the point. I was here whenever you asked me to be, and I am not exactly burdened with excess time. I never made demands. We were decent to each other. What else do you want?”

“Not to fight now.” I tried to match her coldness. “Why go deeper into it? Why stop being decent now?”

“May I ask something personal?” Devi asked. We were standing in the kitchen, and I made coffee to have something to do with my hands.

“Why not?” I handed her a cup.

She took a cigarette from her purse and raised her eyes to see whether I minded her smoking in the house. I shrugged, and she opened the window, then sat on the sill. “Have you been in love before?”

“Yes. I believe so.”

“And it didn’t work out, or else we wouldn’t be here now. I have as well. I do not need that now. It is too, too unreliable. Know what I mean?”

“I believe so.”

“I mean, you think life always works out for the best, if you’re smart and work at it. It doesn’t. Life makes no sense. You work hard, and you’re clever as anyone, and you get banged up despite yourself. If I get banged up again, I at least want it to be beyond my control.”

“You think we would hurt each other?”

“I know we would. We would look at each other one day, when we were dissatisfied in general, and wonder whether there was more. Something we had robbed ourselves of. As it is, we have exactly the deal we struck. You call me whenever you want. I answer. Neither of us ever has to say, ‘I want you.’ Or ‘I miss you.’ Or ‘I feel alone.’ Or ‘I love you and am devoted for the duration.’” She gestured toward the streets beyond the window. “The messy things that lead to disappointment and worse, when you are still misunderstood and feel alone inside a couple.

“You gave what you wanted, what you could. So did I. And if I didn’t give any more, I never gave less. But if you start asking me for more now I will give less. Eventually I will hate you for demanding, for needing, and you will hate me for not giving. At least that would be the smart way to feel. But if either of us was emotionally available to the other, we would have owned up to this long ago.” She placed her coffee cup down on the sill, and looked out the window.

“It’s not a logic problem,” I said, still uncertain what I felt, other than we had achieved the clarity of knowing it was over. “It’s the difference between what we think — I admire this person; maybe we can be happy together. What we feel — this is fun; we like each other — and what we experience, which is that we are not in love.”

“Maybe we are not emotional people.”

“Everyone is emotional. Even us.”

“I am a realist. And you? Maybe when it’s a war somewhere.” She turned from the window to look at me. “Or a disaster, or someone so far removed the camera only looks one way, with no chance of the other person turning it back. Then you understand everything, and feel everything, including your own self-gratifying, morally superior emotion of empathy. What about the person next to you? What about me, who was in your bed?”

“You said you were not available in that way.”

“Maybe I would have been.”

“That’s irrational.” I was confused, but it was clear our deepest selves were not present, and would not be. We were simply analyzing the end of the affair, shifting the ruins of a vanquished civilization for some muddy understanding of why it was predestined to fail.

“Maybe it would have worked if you had taken the risk in the beginning, six, four, five months ago. You know what I mean? The risk people take when they put everything on the line for what they want. Now you will go chase something else. Why worry about what we had. I don’t know why I am arguing about this.”

“Because you care? I don’t know.”

“Because I’m confused. You’re confused and confused means no. You don’t want me. You’ve merely talked yourself into it, because you like the idea of me. If you wanted me and I wanted you we would have known. But we cared for each other. It’s right to acknowledge that. If you want a family it’s wrong that we should settle for that alone.”

What she said rang true and I relinquished the argument. What I felt, to my chagrin, was relief.

“Or maybe in the end all we can do is settle. But not yet.” She rose from the window, brushing down the skirt of her dress. She came and stood next to me in her bare feet, looking up wistfully.