It had just started to rain when I ran into Theo’s parents on the street outside the museum. I was trying to hail a taxi. I was nervous that Theo’s mother Sally would scratch my face or that his father Reg would throw me to the ground. I would have let them beat me up. But they didn’t seem inclined to any kind of violence. Or even a hard word. I was happy to see them and they seemed happy to see me. They pressed me to have a drink at their new apartment just a few blocks away, and I reluctantly accepted even though I was still apprehensive. It had been three years since I’d given them the note, and I didn’t know what they knew or didn’t know.

Sally had taken to dyeing her hair again and it made her powder-blue eyes pop. Her fair skin looked smoother than I remembered. Maybe she’d had a face-lift. Reg looked like he’d lost some weight though he was still a big man, like me, with forearms like hams. He fixed martinis in a shaker and passed me one as if everyone on Earth were having perfect martinis in crystal glasses at this hour. I had to hand it to Reg in his tweed jacket. He inhabited his adopted WASPy-ness so well. Other than his last name, you’d never suspect his ghetto-poor and Jewish childhood.

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