Finally she said, “Because I knew who you were.”
I stared at her.
“Before Tinder?”
“Yes.”
The bright green dress suddenly looked almost ridiculous against the room.
“You knew me before we matched?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Instead of answering, Claire looked at the photograph.
I read the note aloud.
“‘Found Ethan today. Tell him.’ Tell me what?”
She reached for the back of a dining chair but didn’t sit down.
“Nora was my sister.”
I looked again at the little girl beside me.
Something shifted at the edge of my memory.
Purple glasses.
A laugh.
A book lying open across two sets of knees.
But each image disappeared before I could hold onto it.
“Your sister?”
“My half-sister. She was much younger than me.”
“Why am I in a picture with her?”
Claire finally looked directly at me.
“Because you were friends.”
The answer should have made things clearer.
Instead, everything became more confusing.
For six months, I’d believed I knew exactly how Claire and I had entered each other’s lives.
I was 25 and almost ready to give up on dating apps entirely.
Claire was 45. She had seemed different from the first message she sent me. Direct. Funny. Completely sure of what she wanted.
The 20-year age difference made me hesitate, but not for very long.
Our first coffee lasted nearly four hours.
She remembered that I hated cinnamon in coffee.
I remembered that she bought terrible refrigerator magnets whenever she traveled.
By our third date, she knew my boss’s name, my favorite pizza place, and how I’d gotten the scar on my wrist.
With Claire, I’d never felt like I had to wonder what she meant.
Apparently, what I’d been wrong about was where she had come from.
“So you matched with me because of Nora.”
Claire didn’t try to avoid the question.
“At first, yes.”
I put the photograph down on the coffee table.
“Wow.”
“Ethan, I wasn’t trying to trick you into a relationship.”
“You literally recognized me from childhood and didn’t tell me.”
“I know.”
“You went to coffee already knowing who I was.”
“Yes.”
“And I knew nothing.”
Claire shut her eyes for a second.
“Yes. I meant to tell you that day.”
I picked up the photograph again and tapped the newer handwriting.
“You wrote this before you saw me again.”
I looked at the date once more.
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