I loved her, to be sure. I never doubted that. But the basic fact was this: her conviction that she was the most important person in the universe, the peg around which the wheel revolved, remained unchallenged in her mind even when faced with the most glorious celestial mysteries of which she was no part. She wore her disdain for the rest of the world as a permanently doubtful smile, one of a person who is insightfully amused with what she is watching but remains incalculably distanced, a mocking, infinitely patient observer. She treated me no differently. Why, then, did I love her?

A day. Breakfast. “Have you ever thought of how many people there are in the world?” she asked over her shoulder, while fingers, knuckles, hands worked vehemently in unison with arms and shoulders, muscles entwined around bone, tendons, and ligaments in concert, to open a jar of peanut butter. Her English muffin, freshly charred, sat waiting for a slathering on the counter. The coffee was still steaming in the pot. Bright, golden sunspots danced on brown cupboards.

“Oh my god, how many?” I answered, glancing up from the paper, mouth agape, sinfully mocking.

She paused, her muscles still tensed, eyebrows artfully and purposefully arched. “Don’t make fun. I’m trying to be serious.”

When it came to these cerebral jousts, I was never sure when or where she would commence. Having both the clever skill of a logician and the innocent intuition of a prosecutor, she had me under her full and complete control. It began when she lured me into a harmless conversation about a seemingly abstract topic. I, repeatedly ignorant of her power over me, would engage her until point by point, she had solidified her argument to an irrefutable degree, leaving me defeated, drained, and somewhat stunned. It had been this way for years.

Like a fool stuck in a blizzard on Everest, I pressed on. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry.” I put the paper down to prove my attentiveness. “How many?”

“No, nevermind. It’s not important. Hand me that dish rag. I can’t get this thing.”

I reached over to the table and tossed it to her, now hooked in and genuinely curious. I sat up in the chair. “How many?” I repeated. There was a note of true sincerity in her voice.

“I don’t know the exact number; that’s not the point. I just think of the number of people I know, and then I think about the number of people I will never, ever meet.”

“Oh? Well, maybe that’s a good thing.” She didn’t look up.

“It’s probably 50,000 to 1. More. It’s a little scary, you know?”

“I guess. Maybe you just aren’t meant to meet those people, so you shouldn’t worry about it.” My eyes stole back down to the page in front of me. I was reading about a scandal involving a small-town politician’s wife and the stepson of her husband’s campaign manager. Heady stuff.

But her focus had shifted. She was still wrestling with the lid, but her mind was elsewhere, somewhere far away. “Maybe I am. What if I am?” She paused and pressed her fingertips against the counter, frustrated, finally abandoning the jar. “Just think about it. All the countries I’ve never been to. Continents. All those people. Doing things I’ll never know about in places I’ll never see. After college, you know, I thought…”

“Well…let’s take a trip. I’ll get you some travel books. National Geographic subscription, maybe?” I was lost in the fog and didn’t know how to proceed. This was somehow different.

Her eyes flashed and met mine. “It’s not that…it’s too late for that. That won’t solve it.”

“Why?” I noticed an involuntary note of desperation.

She raised herself onto her tiptoes and inhaled a deep, slow breath before untensing her muscles and descending back down, seemingly soothed for a moment by the miniscule exertion. She was calmly focused. “What if I am meant to meet them? I mean…what if I do? What if I already did?” She looked down. “I’m sorry. I don’t want you to think…”

Panic.

“Think…what? I don’t see what the big deal is, really, I don’t. You’ve gotten yourself all worked up here, and I can’t figure out why, and it’s not like you.” I started to rise from my seat until I was halted by her outstretched palm. “It’s really not that bad…”

“Just…wait, let me explain something first.”

“Fir…before what? What’s going on?” Spiraling out of control.

She coiled back into herself, rubbing her forehead up with her fingertips. Then she burst forth with a deft, violent motion, and grabbed the jar savagely, twisting at the stuck lid.

“I met someone. Someone else. I’m sorry.”

Suddenly, with a loud pop, the lid came off in her hand.