"I know you don't owe me a call," he began. "I'm sorry Rachel used my place to upset you."
"Did you know that was why she was coming?"
"No. She called from a cab, upset, and said she'd had a fight with you. I told her she could sit and talk for a little while. When she arrived she was crying, and I offered the couch because she'd been drinking wine and I didn't want her traveling across the city at two in the morning."
I remembered the photograph of the glass. "Was the wine meant for me to see?"
"She took a picture after she told me she'd texted you. I asked her not to make me part of that. She said you weren't calling anyway."
"Was anybody else there?"
"No. My girlfriend Naomi was out of town helping her mother. And before you ask, yes, Naomi knows Rachel came over. I told her the next morning. She wasn't thrilled."
Henry paused. "Rachel and I didn't sleep together. I'm not asking you to trust me because I said that. I'm telling you what happened as I experienced it."
I sat in my parked car listening to the heater blow warm air against the windshield. I had spent forty-eight hours imagining him as someone who enjoyed winning a contest I hadn't agreed to enter. Hearing him sound embarrassed didn't erase his decision to offer Rachel a place to stay, but it complicated the picture.
"Why call me now?" I asked.
"Because she phoned yesterday and asked whether I'd tell you she'd never intended anything romantic. I said I could tell you what happened, but I couldn't fix what she meant by sending you my address. She got angry. Then I realized I should ask you whether you wanted to hear directly from me instead of letting her speak for both of us."
The sentence landed harder than he probably intended. Rachel had already spoken for me to Leah. Now she was trying to manage what Henry would tell me too.
"Thank you for being clear," I said.
"I won't contact her for a while. I should've set a firmer boundary when she arrived. Naomi and I have had our own conversation about that."
"That's between you and Naomi."
"Fair enough. For what it's worth, Bruce, I don't think she's a bad person. I think she's terrified when she feels somebody pulling away, and she does things that turn the fear into a bigger problem. That doesn't make you responsible for it."
We ended the call without hostility. I sat in the car a few minutes longer. The person Rachel had chosen to make me fear had behaved with more respect for my right to decide whether to talk than she had. I didn't feel satisfaction at that realization. I felt tired.
That evening Rachel called after dinner. She had spoken to Olivia, who had urged her not to keep sending me scattered apologies that turned into requests for reassurance. She asked whether we could meet in person on Wednesday, somewhere neutral. I agreed to thirty minutes at a cafe near my office, because we still had practical issues to settle.