Just like him to be in this situation, isn’t it? With Cristina, it was always push and pull, push and pull, getting berated for little things and teased and prodded at, and he liked it until he realized he couldn’t go back to her — couldn’t go back to being who he was with her, anyway. And then there was Caterina, capricious but tenacious, a deep well of inspiration for him, but she wouldn’t want him. Maybe in a decade or two, if he was even there to see it. He couldn’t be sure that she’d ever be his equal, or that she’d permit it.

He ponders Stephanie’s lovely face, amused that he is about to get his memories smacked into him.

She could be his partner.

He says, offhand: “I told her that I am in love with you.”