“Of course you don’t,” I said. “Because you don’t know the difference between the two.” “Did you ever love me?” “Yes, I did. When you made love to me and you made me feel desire and you took good care of my daughter and I believed that you saw something in me that no one else saw. When I believed you had an insight and a talent that no one else had. I loved you very much.” “So you are not a lesbian,” he said. “T don’t want to discuss this with you.” “Well, you’re going to. You have to.” “No,” I said, gathering the letters and envelopes and shoving them into my pockets. “I don’t.” “Yes,” he said, blocking the door. “You do.” “Max, get out of my way. I’m leaving.” “Not to see her,” he said. “You can’t.” “Of course I can.” The phone started ringing, but I was too far away to answer it. I knew it was the driver. I knew that if I didn’t leave, I might miss my flight. There would be other flights, but I wanted to catch that one. I wanted to get to Celia as soon as possible. “Evelyn, stop,” Max said. “Think about this. It makes no sense. You can’t leave me. I could make one phone call and destroy you. I could tell anyone, anyone at all, about this, and your life would never be the same.” He wasn’t threatening me. He was simply explaining to me what was so clearly obvious. It was as if he was saying, Honey, you’re not thinking clearly. That won't end well for you. “You're a good man, Max,” I said. “I can see you being angry enough to try to hurt me. But I’ve known you to at least try to do the right thing most of the time.” “And what if this time I don’t?” he said. And there, finally, was the threat. “T’m leaving you, Max. It either happens now or it happens later, but it’s happening sometime. If you decide you want to try to bring me down