Owen only got worse. He acquired the idea that he was doomed to alcoholism and suicide, like his mother and her father before her, even though he didn’t like to drink. His eating and sleeping slid even further off kilter, and he grew preoccupied with what he called obvious conspiracies in government and industry. He saw four different psychotherapists in the space of six months, and tried seven courses of psychotropic drugs.

I tried to be there for him. His family was exhausting but I wanted to make the effort for Owen. Yet more and more, I found myself hanging out with my friend Bill instead. He was a comparatively simple soul. It seemed strange that I wanted to spend time with a man I didn’t love, while I shied away from being with Owen.

There still might have been a chance. There might have been a moment or two, when Owen and I could have reached into our relationship and saved it. But that’s when his father took me out for coffee and bared his soul.

He parked the car outside the Dennys restaurant and we got a booth near the door. He ordered coffee and apple pie and, like Owen, he stirred sugar into his coffee first, before adding the cream. I drank mine black, and I’d ordered no food, so I watched him. He settled back on the bench seat, cleared his throat, apparently thought he’d try another posture, and shifted his upper body forward, elbows on the table and fingers laced beneath his chin. He made a pretty speech. He begged me to take care of his son.

I was stunned. I was floored to silence with surprise. That was before I knew how ignorant most adults are. It was one of those rare moments in life, alone with another person, when we are thinking poles apart. So it took me a few moments to comprehend. Owen’s father as much as said to me: “I’m too busy with myself right now. You’ll have to parent my kid.”

As soon as I got it I pulled away with revulsion, my back slapping the leatherette booth, but it took years for me to realize how his father had emasculated Owen for me. A long time later I knew our last chance was killed in that coffee shop, by his abnegating dad.

At the time, I went about my business and fell in love with Bill. Owen was interviewing his fifth shrink when I rediscovered the joys of simple lusty sex.

Owen wrestled his demons with faith and a vegetarian diet. He leveled himself. He gave up being rambunctious and brilliant, in exchange for sleep and a railing at the precipice. After he got used to speaking more softly and driving with his lights on, he settled in and embraced the benefits of humble labor. He adjusted to abstinence.

His sisters both grew up to be gay and in stable monogamous unions. Their father maintains that toxic relationships with their mother drove them to it, but everyone knows orientation isn’t a matter of choice.

I married Bill, had three children with him, and eventually left him. But I never regretted the marriage, and I really like the kids.

Owen spent some time on SSI after his bipolar diagnosis. He got his credentials once he stabilized, and he worked a few years as a substitute elementary teacher before returning to school for himself. It took him five years to finish his master’s. He hopes to have his doctorate in another three. Then he’ll look for a job. At fifty-seven.

I see him once or twice a year. I always feel fond when I’m with him and a little sad afterward. I can’t forget the other Owen, the earlier guy. I remember what that brain could have done.

Sometimes I wonder what life would have been like if I’d married him. I know now it wouldn’t have been the union of struggling great writers that played so well in my undergraduate imagination. But we might have had a child or two. I probably would have developed a financial district career somewhere, and he would have gone into teaching. We might have propped each other up at tough times, and maybe we would have written, individually or together. He would have driven me nuts with his little obsessions. I would have irritated him to mimicry with my self-conscious laugh. I might leave the house more readily. He might drive faster, and break some rules.

Then I remember a cup of coffee with his father, and feeling forced to agree to be Owen’s parent. One was dead and the other was preoccupied. I could never have married that.

Right. I couldn’t have. Not the person I was then. In the ensuing thirty years and in the parlance of my many therapists, I have given myself permission to be sweet. The person I am now might have been able to keep loving Owen. But young I never could have done it; I was too busy reacting to my own father and his unrelenting ideas. Given my dad’s expectations, young I could no more have been sweet than my brother could have been slim. But that’s another story about how things could have been better.

As far as Owen goes, his life never changes much after now. His story, for better or worse, is done.