Months later, winter returned to the city with sharp air and early darkness. Julian’s criminal exposure had not yet resolved, though he now lived in a far smaller apartment and employed far fewer people willing to laugh at his jokes. The first time Eleanor saw him again outside a formal setting, it was accidental. She had taken the boys to a museum on a Saturday afternoon, and while they stood spellbound before a suspended blue whale, she turned and found him thirty feet away near the central staircase.
He looked older. Not dramatically. Just frayed at the edges, like fabric handled too roughly too often. He saw the boys first and smiled reflexively. Then he saw her, and whatever line he had prepared died somewhere inside him.
The children stiffened. Elias moved closer to her side. Adrian looked uncertain.
Julian approached slowly, perhaps because public space makes men remember they are visible.
“Hi,” he said.
Eleanor nodded once. “Julian.”
The boys said nothing.