She turned to him-was he going to speak? His eyes were teary from the wind, red-rimmed and bloodshot. His nose was running and there were tears on his windblown cheeks. She clicked open the purse that hung on her arm and found her handkerchief, but he refused it, reaching into his overcoat for his own. He mopped his face and blew his nose before the crowd got them moving again and as they got to the curb, she placed her left hand on her hat so he could reach her elbow at a more convenient angle-which he did, guiding her across the street as if she were a novice pedestrian, and this time, perhaps, putting a little more pressure behind the fingertips that held her.

“Where are you headed, George?” she asked him. He shouted something unintelligible into the wind.

“Have you eaten yet?” she asked, because it was only polite. And then the wind paused completely, as it will in April, a sudden silence and maybe even the hint of warmth from the sun, so that he replied with odd gentleness, “Yeah, I had my lunch.”

They were at the door of the restaurant. The wind was picking up again. “Would you like some coffee?” she asked.

He shook his head and she could not deny her own relief. “I’m out of time,” he said. And then added, “What about dinner?”

“Lamb chops,” she told him. “You coming over?” Anticipating already a stop at the butcher’s to pick up two or three more.

He shook his head. There was another tear streaming down his windblown cheek and as he replied she lifted the handkerchief in her hand and wiped it away, feeling the not unpleasant pull of his beard against the thin cotton.

He said, “I mean, what about us having dinner?”

The wind puffed up again and they both put their hands to their hats. “Where?” she said, rudely, she realized later. But it was like having a passing stranger suddenly turn to sing you an aria. Anyone would have a second or two of not quite knowing what was really going on.