Jade had never described Remy as a married man, and I realized I had never asked whether he had a wife or partner. I had not cared enough about his private life to find out. Now the detail sat between Curtis and me with an uncomfortable weight.
Curtis gave me one last piece of information. He said Remy's wife was named Dana and that she had been trying for some time to make sense of what happened between her husband and several of his clients. He did not offer her telephone number or suggest I contact her. He simply said that if anyone truly knew what had been going on, Dana might.
Then he apologized for bringing up something painful in the middle of a workday. I told him he had done the right thing by being cautious, and we returned to our tasks. I remember thinking how quickly a person's life can begin to contain names that would have meant nothing a month earlier.
I did not search Dana's social-media accounts that evening. I had enough uncertainty without collecting fragments of another person's marriage from public photographs. I did wonder whether she knew about Jade, the pregnancy, and the apartment where Jade said she was moving. I also wondered whether she had been experiencing the same kind of gradual confusion I had felt while trying to reconcile a familiar partner with increasingly unfamiliar behavior. Those thoughts stayed with me through dinner and into the night. In the end I closed my laptop and went to bed rather than building theories out of information I could not verify.
Three days later, Dana emailed me. She used an address I recognized from an association with the gym, though I had never communicated with her before. Her message was short and unusually direct. She introduced herself as Remy's wife, said they had been separated for a period of time, and explained that she had information she believed might be relevant to the circumstances of my breakup. She acknowledged that contacting me was intrusive and made clear that I was free not to respond. Then she suggested we meet in a public place to discuss what could be shared responsibly.
I read the message several times before answering. It was tempting to believe that somebody had finally arrived to explain the entire situation and remove any ambiguity that remained. But I knew better than to expect another person to repair the emotional consequences of what Jade had chosen. I wrote that I was willing to meet, provided we stayed focused on information relevant to our own circumstances and respected the privacy of other people.
Dana replied with the name of a coffee shop two towns over and a time four days later. I added it to my calendar and went to work. There was something reassuring about an appointment that had a clear place, a clear purpose, and no promise of miraculous closure.