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“No.”

He didn’t say he was sorry or that Paul would never do that. Then again, he didn’t say Paul absolutely would, either...

I knew because some part of me wanted it too, and I was the one who’d been married to Paul for all those years in a life I couldn’t tell anyone here about.

What came out instead was, “I thought I knew him.”

Dean stayed where he was, picking at the edge of the hole in the knee of his faded jeans.

“I know how he takes his coffee,” I said. “I know he hates almonds but buys almond cookies because I like them. He thinks jumper cables belong in every car whether you need them or not. And he goes quiet when he doesn’t want to argue.”

The words made Paul sound tender and maddening at the same time, which was probably the most honest portrait of him I’d had since waking up in the pool house back in 1984.

I looked toward the open window, where life kept moving as if my entire life hadn’t been cracked open over Dean’s kitchen table earlier that day.

“And now I don’t know if he wants to marry me because he loves me, or because he needs my trust money to bail out his family firm. Maybe he never loved me.”

My voice broke and I looked away before Dean could see too much.

He gave me a minute. That was another thing I remembered about him, although my memories had softened it over the years. Dean didn’t try to immediately offer a solution or try to fix things.

Eventually he said, “What do you want?”

I turned, irritated.

“I don’t know.”

“I figured.”

“Then why ask?”

“Because everybody else keeps telling you what they want.”

That took some of the heat out of me. He stood and crossed to the kitchen counter.

“Twin/Tone wants me to expand Side A. Brian wants me to stop caring where he files albums. Otis wants ham. Everybody wants something.”

Otis thumped his tail once from the floor as Dean glanced down.

“See?”

Despite myself, I smiled.

Then he looked back at me. “But none of them get to decide for me.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

The smile disappeared.

“I’m trying.” I curled one leg beneath me and for several seconds I simply stared at my hands.

“I thought coming back to work here would make things clearer.”

Dean glanced at me. “Clearer how?”

I looked toward the record player, where the needle had reached the end of the album and clicked softly in the runout groove.