couch folds out.”
For the first time that evening, he laughed.
But I wasn’t joking.
My apartment had one bedroom, four mismatched chairs, and a twelve-year-old car.
Some months, I counted the days until payday.
But it was my life.
And I wasn’t ashamed of it.
That night I told him,
“If you really lost everything, then we live differently. I have a job. You have your pension. We’ll manage.”
He looked at me.
“What about Italy?”
We had planned a trip there.
“We won’t go.”
“The restaurants?”
“We’ll eat at home.”
“And what if I can never give you the life I could before?”
That question annoyed me.
“William, I fell in love with you when I thought you were an ordinary retired man who drank black coffee and read books. What do you want me to say?”
The next morning, I took him to a small clothing shop
