London was cold in February. That wasn’t surprising. Lena sat in the back of the train with her threadbare wool coat wrapped around her. She practically ran, regretting the decision to ditch the tights, from the train station to the Underground.

She had mapped this route carefully several days before and checked it over many times since. It involved the airport train to the Underground, and a few bursts of walking in between.

Kostos lived in a place called Eaton Square, off the King’s Road. When he’d lived in London long before, after the summer they’d met, he’d lived in a place called Brixton, over a pub and diagonally across from a place called the Speedy Noodle. She remembered so distinctly the feeling in her chest when she saw a letter come through the mail slot with the address written on it in Kostos’s neat-for-a-boy handwriting. She remembered so distinctly the feeling of writing that address out carefully on one envelope after another.

Brixton Hill, Lambeth. That was the start of a poem for her. It captured a feeling. Eaton Square, less so. It was newer to her, and time and memory helped bestow poetry. It was a little colder-sounding, she thought, less evocative. It had its power, though. How many times had she stared at the address, trying to picture it, trying to picture the Kostos who lived there and the moods and ranges of the place?

She spent a few moments orienting herself after she emerged from the Tube stop called Sloane Square. She walked the wrong way a couple of times before she found a street name that seemed right.

She found the street and a row of houses with relevant numbers that appeared to be going in the right direction.

Fourteen, sixteen, eighteen. She stopped and checked the map she had printed out. His house was apparently five numbers farther down a row of stunningly posh and handsome town houses. Did that mean he lived in one of these?

She slowed her pace. Eaton Square was seeming colder by the minute. Her legs were not simply cold, but numb. She checked her map and then the address as he’d written it on the envelope again.

She tentatively walked past another house and another, wondering if these were the kinds of buildings that were divided into flats. They were awfully big to belong to one owner, weren’t they? If they were flats, she hoped Kostos’s name would be indicated on the buzzer or mailbox or something.

She carried on very slowly, as though a powerful wind were pressing against her, until she reached number twenty-eight. She looked up at it. It was a sort of glowing white limestone with a portico, and ornamental trees on either side of a grand and glossy black door.

She scanned the area around the door for a panel of buzzers, but there was just one, an elegant button set in a polished brass plate. There weren’t numerous mailboxes, there was one, also brass. Was this his front door; were these his perfect little trees, his upstairs windows? Could she really walk those three steps up to his door and push that button?

Her feeling of intimidation had melted away in his presence in Oia, but now it was back in force. He was a rich and successful man. He lived in a mansion in the middle of London. He had lunch with the treasury minister. What was Tibby thinking, sending him this letter? What was Lena thinking, delivering it?

In fact, what in the world was she doing here? There was no sense in which she belonged. She felt like she’d been Photoshopped into the scene. The whole enterprise struck her as childish, akin to passing notes in seventh grade.

She looked up at the house again. It was six forty-five London time. There were lights on. He was probably home.

She glanced again at the mailbox. Could she just leave it there? How strictly did Tibby intend the “in person”?

She walked up the first stair. She put her hand in her bag and took out the letter. She took another step. She looked at the mailbox. She took another step and carefully eased it open. Without breathing she put the letter inside and turned around. She walked down the three steps and stopped.

No, she couldn’t do this. What if she’d made a mistake? What if he didn’t live here anymore? And more importantly, she’d come all the way here to deliver a goddamned letter in person and she was going to deliver a letter in person.

Tibby was trying to get her not to be a chicken, obviously, and Lena wasn’t going to go and subvert Tibby after all this. What did she have to lose anymore?

Lena turned around and walked back up the steps. She plucked the envelope out of the mailbox and pushed the doorbell before she could think another thought.

Her heart was throbbing. She pictured Kostos only three months before, lying on the couch across from her, his arms around her ankles.

She could do this. It didn’t matter that his house was gigantic and he had multibillion-dollar deals to make. He cared about her. He’d loved her once—so much that he’d bought her a ring and thought he wanted to marry her. Granted, he’d thrown the ring into the Caldera and sworn against her name, but she had been important once.

She held on to the image of his sleepy face on her grandparents’ couch as she waited for the door to open.

The door opened, but it wasn’t his face that appeared. It was the face of a dark-haired woman in a black cocktail dress and heels. It was a beautiful face wearing dark pink lipstick, made up for a night out. Maybe this wasn’t where Kostos lived anymore.

Lena had to reach down to find her voice. “Is this the residence of Kostos Dounas?” she asked. She was shivering inside her coat.

“Yes, it is. Can I help you?”

The woman’s face appeared suspicious to Lena, and not welcoming. Lena looked down at the envelope in her hand. “I have something for him,” she said faintly.

The woman put out her hand. “I can take it.”

Lena looked at the white manicured hand with the glinting sapphire ring on the third finger. She looked again at the letter, addressed in Tibby’s handwriting. This was far worse than the mailbox. She knew this was not what Tibby had intended.

“Is he here, by any chance?” Lena asked timidly.

The woman sized her up, and Lena felt unbelievably cold and self-conscious. “Are you a friend of his?” she asked.

“Yes. An old friend,” Lena answered courageously.

The woman seemed to be considering. She took in Lena’s old coat and her bare legs. She took a step back and turned toward the stairs. “Darling, you have a caller,” she shouted merrily, as though Lena were no more than a puzzling, weirdly dressed joke to her.

Lena stood frozen. Why hadn’t she thought of this? Of course he was “darling.” Of course. He wasn’t a student, living with four roommates in a flat across from the Speedy Noodle, writing longing letters to Lena. He was a powerful man living in a big glittering house in a fancy neighborhood, the darling of a woman with a sapphire ring and a mean stare.

Lena crossed her arms, clutching herself protectively, and finally permitted herself an unsettling and obvious question: Was this woman his wife?

Kostos hadn’t said he was married when they were in Santorini together, but what was the need? He was being nice to her, pitying her out of devotion to her dead grandparents, and besides, she hadn’t asked him one single question about his life. It wasn’t like he’d been hiding anything. The idea that she was any longer a potential match probably hadn’t occurred to him.

Lena’s eyes sought the stairs behind the woman, because she saw some movement there. She watched in a strangely serene state of self-punishment as Kostos walked down the grand staircase. He was also dressed for an evening out, but his shirt was not yet buttoned to the top and his tie was not yet tied. His hair was still wet, presumably from a shower.

She caught the whole picture, the stunning yet mean woman standing inside the door, the glorious Kostos descending the stairs, the glowing interior of this gorgeous house of theirs, the mass of pink lilies on the hall table. Click. She got it all in a single frame, and the picture of it all together was devastating.

Lena felt like a child. Worse than a child and less valuable. She felt like a mouse. No, smaller than a mouse and less alive. Her life seemed so small and crumpled you could shoot it through a straw like a spitball.

Kostos stopped near the bottom of the stairs as it slowly dawned on him who was there. He was surprised, undoubtedly. She didn’t know what else he was, because she couldn’t look any longer. She looked away.

She held out Tibby’s letter with a shaking hand, and the woman took it. “I am so sorry for disturbing you,” she said earnestly. She turned and walked down the three stairs and away from that house as fast as her numb legs would take her.

As soon as Brian had shut the door to his study at the rear of the house, Bridget embarked on her journey back through time.

It began with Bridget and Bailey staring at each other over cereal.

“Bee,” Bailey said to her. “Beebee. Beeeee. Bee.”

“Right,” Bridget said with a note of pride. “That’s me.” She hadn’t realized she had a name that fit perfectly into the mouth of a toddler.

Bailey tipped her bowl over and sent milk and Rice Krispies all over the table. She laughed.

Bridget thought of Brian’s advice. But here was another way Bailey was different from her—Bridget wouldn’t have done that.

Bridget cleaned up the mess and felt the day stretching out for a thousand years in front of her. She tried to think back. What had she liked to do?

“Let’s go outside,” she said. She lifted Bailey from her high chair and put her on the ground. She took her hand and led her out to the backyard.

The grass seemed to glow. The little forest buzzed. The world felt early and young out here, a place where none of the serious things could have happened yet.

“Oh, my gosh. You have a creek!” Bridget exclaimed.

“Creek,” Bailey repeated.

Bridget led her under the canopy of leaves to the edge of the water. It was a perfect creek, just like the one that ran through the little woods at the end of Tibby’s old street. Time passed so slowly at that place Bee couldn’t begin to calculate the number of hours they’d spent there.

“Look, you can step over it. You can walk on the stones.” She swung Bailey from one rock to another, as Bailey slipped and slid.

Bridget liked how Bailey was careful, but her balance wasn’t very good. Bridget hoped she would not pull Bailey’s small arm right out of its socket. Bailey’s eyes were large and uncertain as she looked down at the water going past her feet. Bridget wondered if she was scared.

“Again,” Bailey said as soon as they got to the other side.

“Okay,” Bridget said. They went across again, slipping and sliding. Bridget couldn’t tell from Bailey’s face whether she liked it or hated it.

“Again,” Bailey said again, and so they did.

They went back and forth and back and forth with complete solemnity until a foot went wrong and landed in the shallow flow. Bailey looked up at Bridget to see how they felt about it. Bridget smiled. “Ha! Cold!” she said.

Bailey’s serious face transformed into an expression of pure glee. “Ha!” she said. “Ha ha!”

Bridget felt her face mirroring Bailey’s. “Ha ha!”

Once they made friends with the water, they started looking for things to catch. At first it was just a stringy bug that Bridget picked up from the surface. She held it out on her palm as it wriggled. Bailey touched it in fascination. Bridget couldn’t think of a specific name for it. “Bug,” she said.

“Bug,” Bailey repeated, digging into the “g” sound, looking at Bridget as though she were a genius. It was nice to be around someone so easily impressed.

Bridget put the bug back gently. As much as she felt like a child, she realized that as a child she would have just as easily crushed it in her hand or smashed it against a rock. She never thought of the bug fitting into a larger perspective back then.

They perched on neighboring rocks, Bridget holding Bailey’s hand, and dangled their free hands in the water to sieve for crayfish. Bridget caught one and triumphantly held it up, all its little legs going.

“Big bug,” Bailey intoned carefully. There was so much motion she was timid about touching it.

“It doesn’t bite.” Bridget put Bailey’s finger on it so she could enjoy its sliminess.

“Bite,” Bailey said. She got a slightly vicious look on her face and snapped her jaws together.

“No, it doesn’t bite us. And we don’t bite it.”

Bailey thought this was funny. Or seemed to think it should be funny. She opened her mouth in a wide and somewhat fake laugh. Bridget saw she only had about eight teeth, all crowded to the front, and big spaces where the molars would go.

“Here. You can throw it back,” Bridget said. She carefully put it in Bailey’s palm. “Gentle,” Bridget said as Bailey’s fingers closed around it with a crunching sound.

“Okay, say goodbye.”

Bailey flung the disfigured, mostly dead crayfish. “Bye! Bye-bye!” she shouted gaily.

Why did you want this for me, Tib? Why did you make me do it?

Lena walked for blocks and blocks. So much for her carefully labeled map of London. She didn’t have any direction in mind and she barely looked up.

Maybe it was so Lena could finally see what was obviously true to everyone else: Kostos had moved on. He was far out of her league.

Tibby wouldn’t think of it that way, exactly, because she had always overvalued Lena. But she would want Lena to understand that it was time for her to move on too.

Lena passed unthinkingly through one neighborhood and then another.

At last she was too cold and tired to go on. She didn’t want to sit at a restaurant or drink at a bar by herself. She ducked into a supermarket that was open late.

Sightlessly she walked up and down the aisles, and eventually stood by the front window. It was dark on the street and brightly lit in the store, so she couldn’t see the outside; she saw only her forlorn reflection. She wanted to distract herself with the life on the sidewalk, but instead she saw her red dress and felt embarrassed.

There had been a fantasy. She hadn’t wanted to acknowledge it, but there absolutely had been. She would wear her red dress, and Kostos would see her anew. He would see her here in London and realize he loved her again, maybe had loved her all along. He would grasp not just the letter but her. He would take her in his arms and overwhelm all of her fears and misgivings. In some way she longed to turn herself over to him, to let him take over the running of her, because she didn’t know how to do it anymore.

She’d been trying to look glamorous and magnetic, but in the context of Kostos’s home and his wife (or girlfriend or maybe fiancée), her efforts seemed pathetic. Red dress or brown, she looked like what she was: a timid cipher. She was usually good at keeping her hopes down, but even that small gift had failed her this time.

It was the time they’d spent together in Santorini that had done it to her. She’d felt so close to him; closer than she’d even known. She’d told herself she wanted nothing more from him, but it wasn’t true.

As angry as she was at herself, she realized she had some anger left over for Kostos too.

“Can I help you?” a young woman behind a register asked her.

Lena turned her head to stare at her and remembered where she was.

“No. Thank you. Sorry,” she said with her head down. She went back outside to the cold and resumed her walking.

She thought maybe if she walked long enough she might eventually pass into Brixton, but now she had the sad feeling that there was no way to get there from here.

She remembered back almost ten years ago to her moonlit walk up the hill in Oia to meet him in their special olive grove.

“Someday,” he’d said to her in Greek. She hadn’t been able to speak Greek at all then, and it had taken her great effort to figure out what the word meant.

The word had seemed like a precious gift at the time, a keepsake or an inheritance. She’d tucked it away and treasured it accordingly, waiting for the right time to cash it in.

Waiting and waiting. That was her thing. The word gave her an excuse to wait and do little else. The word wasn’t so much a gift as a terminal virus with a long period of latency.

In her heart she thought he had meant it, but of course he hadn’t. She remembered other parts of that long-ago conversation word for word. He’d asked her if she loved somebody else and she’d said, “I don’t know if I can.” And in return he’d said, “I know I can’t.”

She had been pretending she’d more or less forgotten the whole episode, but she hadn’t. She had still been a teenager at the time, he not much older, and that gave everybody an automatic out, didn’t it?

No, it didn’t. Not in her lockbox of a heart. I know I can’t. She’d held on to that declaration as if it were a signed affidavit.

And yet it was total crap. She thought of the beautiful, scornful woman in the black dress. Oh, yes, you can, Lena thought.

People said things they didn’t mean all the time. Everybody else in the world seemed able to factor it in. But not Lena. Why did she believe the things people said? Why did she cling to them so literally? Why did she think she knew people when she clearly didn’t? Why did she imagine that the world didn’t change, when it did?

Maybe because she didn’t change. She believed what people said and she stayed the same.