I nodded. "Fair enough."
He hesitated. "I just want people to stop acting like I have to be mad at him forever to prove I'm on Mom's side. I'm mad sometimes. I also like going to baseball games with him. Is that weird?"
"No," I said. "It sounds like having feelings that are bigger than one answer."
Oliver looked relieved, then uncomfortable with having said so much. He took the labels and returned to the worktable. I watched him go and thought about how much courage it required for a teenager to tell adults that their neat stories about betrayal were not large enough to contain his life.
After the guests left, Nora and I cleared cups and folded tables. She worked quickly, tired but happy, carrying stacks of plates into the little kitchen in back. I found her there leaning against the counter, smiling to herself. When she noticed me, she straightened and asked whether the last of the guests had gone.
"Everybody but me," I said.
"You've been very good at staying until the work's done."
"Occupational hazard."
She looked at me, her expression changing. "Reid, can I ask you something without making it strange?"
"You can ask."
"Do you ever wonder whether we're only close because of what happened?" She looked at the empty cake box. "Sometimes I worry the whole friendship is built on the worst night of our lives. That if we met any other way, we wouldn't have anything to say."
I thought about the first hours in the diner, when neither of us knew what to do with our hands. I thought about all the conversations since then that had nothing to do with Sabrina or Colin. There had been enough ordinary moments now that I could answer without reaching for a comforting story.
"We met because of what happened," I said. "That doesn't explain why I like talking to you now. It doesn't explain why I remember which photographs you care about, or why you know I hate the smell of fresh paint in a room with no windows."
She smiled. "Everybody should hate that."
"You know what I mean."
"I do." She took a breath. "I'm not ready to make a decision about anything complicated."
"Neither am I. But I don't want to keep pretending I haven't noticed something changing."
Nora looked at me for a long time. Then she nodded, almost imperceptibly. "I've noticed it, too."
Nothing dramatic followed. Nobody moved across the kitchen to kiss somebody. Nobody made a promise about forever. We stood beside the sink while the refrigerator hummed and agreed to continue being honest, especially when honesty made things more difficult instead of easier.
Outside, autumn had returned to Philadelphia. The air smelled faintly of wet leaves and traffic, and the windows of the shops along South Street were beginning to glow against the early darkness. I walked Nora to her car and said goodnight. For a moment our hands brushed as she reached for her keys. Neither of us moved away quickly, but neither of us treated the touch as permission to hurry.