Dani Shapiro

Lenny called me from a business trip and told me he was at Montreal airport waiting to catch a flight to Calgary.

I checked with the airline and found out that the flight would take approximately five hours.

So when Lenny called an hour later to say he had landed in Calgary, I very calmly asked him where he really was.

Calgary, he said.

No, Lenny, really.

He stuck to his story.

In the time that I knew him, he never, ever changed his story midstream.

I hung up on him and called his family's house in Westchester.

When the maid answered the phone, I asked to speak with Mr. Klein.

And when he picked up the extension and I heard his rough, craggy hello, I screamed so hard into his ear that he dropped the receiver.

He raced into the city.

He let himself into my apartment and found me curled up in bed.

He scooped me up and held me to his chest.

His wife wasn't home, he told me.

She was having shock treatment, and someone had to take care of his daughter.

He hadn't wanted to tell me because he'd wanted to spare me, to protect me from the horror of his life.

Surely I understood.

Shush, sweetheart, he murmured into the top of my head as I wept, my face beet red like a little girl's.

So many people need me, he said, but I love you best of all.

Two years have passed and something has gone wrong, terribly wrong with my life.