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"He did right by you, in the end," Marcus said.

He'd just cut the last of his steak and pushed the plate across to my side without asking. I'd mentioned once, at the factory, that I always went for the same cut.

"You've been divorced a long time. Are you not going to consider finding someone else?"

I looked at him over the table.

"Is this 'someone else' meant to be you?"

"It might be," he said.

I raised my glass. He raised his.

We looked at each other across the table, and something about it made me laugh — genuinely, without trying — for the first time in longer than I could remember.