I had not forgotten lunch at her sister's. I remembered it in the shop while choosing a roll to eat in the car. I remembered when my phone rang too. I let it ring, looked toward the river, and told myself I was entitled to one peaceful afternoon. When I eventually called Aida, I used the familiar sentence: "It completely slipped my mind."

There was no customary sigh at the other end. She asked where I was. I said I had stopped to finish something. She said her sister had just sent a photograph of the table, to her rather than me, and the empty chair looked like a message. I offered to bring cakes another day. Aida replied that she was not talking about cakes. She sounded calm, which was when I finally sensed something was different.

At home she met me with a calendar in which nothing was circled. I expected a list of missed events, but there was none. She described inventing excuses throughout lunch, listening to her sister's hurt feelings, and defending a man who would not answer her calls. I did not like her sister; she knew that. I also disliked being rude, so for years I had packaged my rudeness for Aida to unwrap in front of other people.

When she asked whether I had really forgotten, I tried to turn the conversation into an argument about how often we visited her family. She refused the diversion. She waited for an answer. I said I had not. Nothing dramatic happened in the room: no glass fell, no door slammed. She simply stopped explaining things. She said next time I should decline the invitation myself, in advance, to the person who had issued it.

A week later her brother in law invited us on an outing. I did not want to go. I held the phone for a long time, inventing a broken car, exhaustion, and unexpected work. Then I wrote that I would skip it and wished them a pleasant day. His reply was brief and unenthusiastic. I had to endure someone disliking my decision. Aida went alone and came back happy, with no obligation to soothe me because she had enjoyed herself.

For the next lunch I called her sister and accepted. I did not expect praise for appearing. I brought a salad and ate at the table for the first time without secretly calculating what they owed me for coming. Aida laughed several times at something I had not heard. She did not pull me into every conversation. I was sitting there by my own choice, a little uncomfortable, but finally present.