Later that day, Mr. Faraway sends another email, apologizing for some mis-directed message he sent me that was intended for his almost-ex-wife. I had gotten the message and replied, Huh? Then realized his error, and didn’t give it another thought.

He did, though. He sends me a message from his phone, saying he had a weird phone issue and would explain later.

I’m still thinking about his schedule, and feeling mad, and wondering if I have the right to feel that way, and feeling hurt, and wondering what to do about it. I spend every evening chatting with him on-line – I fit in there, when he’s sitting on the couch, sort-of watching tv with his kids. But in the real world, I don’t fit in.

I dwell on this a bit, and realize how much I don’t like it. Time is the most precious of commodities; it is one of the few things we simply can’t get more of. I think about all of the things I did with that time before he started filling it – writing and knitting and reading and cooking. I like talking with him, but if that’s all it is – talking when there’s nothing else to do – well, in that case I need a lot less of it.

A lot less.

I don’t reply to this message, and an hour later, receive a lengthy email, explaining the misdirected message. I don’t care. I don’t care about his almost-ex or his phone problems or any of the rest of it. I care about my feelings, which become more and more bruised with each effort by him to get my attention.

I decide my feelings matter, and compose a careful email explaining my point of view to him. I appreciate that you do all these things, I say: It is wonderful that you are so committed to family and community. But there is not a lot of room for me in all that, or anyone else either. I have some thinking to do about that, and what it means for me.

He replies that evening: this is a big issue in my life, one I’m trying to deal with. I’m sorry to drag you into it, I truly did not mean to cause any hurt. He tells me I am smart and attractive and witty and how much he hopes that, no matter what, he will have me as a friend for life.

It stings much more than I imagined it could.

He tries to talk to me later, on Facebook, explaining himself over and over. So many things to attend to, so many demands on his time. It all seems very complicated to him, and I am sure that it is, given his mid-divorce status and all the adjustments he suddenly needs to make.

To me, though, it is very simple: he doesn’t have time. The reasons don’t really matter, in the end. He fills my message window with lengthy explanations, but after a while I stop reading them and go to sleep.

We spend our evenings chatting on Facebook, but three weeks have passed since our dinner, and  Mr. Faraway and I still have no plans to get together. I hint a bit here and there, but though it’s clear he takes my meaning, he does not take it any further than that. We make plans to see a movie that is coming out in a few months, but that is a long way off and tentative at best.

Be patient, I tell myself. This is very new to him, and there’s a lot of distance – a lot of miles – between us both.

My father nods his approval of Mr. Faraway: He was sent to teach you patience, he tells me.

I know that is what I should do, and that I should be enjoying our chats and savoring our stolen glances, but suddenly I don’t anymore. I feel like a substitute for the real thing: I fill in the time when he’d otherwise be alone, and keep him company through a keyboard. I think I am being unfair, like I have to overlook all his good points to feel that way, but it still nags and gnaws at me.

One morning, not long after that second event, I receive a barrage of emails from him. They are coming from his phone, but short and clipped, often incomplete – a puzzle of text messages to assemble. He’s trying to find a date to get together again, but that isn’t what the messages say.

What they say is: On these dates, I have board meetings and a scholarship auction. On those dates, those are my kid weekend. When is your vacation? Oh, then that won’t work.

He goes through the whole month, one message at a time, telling me all the things he is busy with – a list of prior commitments. Every bit of his time is booked, all of it for his children, his job, his community, his church.

It’s a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle, with all the pieces in place: finished.

Except there is one piece, and it’s sitting on the side, wondering if he can find a way to work it in, or whether it will be put back to the box or maybe even the trash. An extra piece, the one there was no place to put.

I stop answering his messages, and focus my attention back at work.

A couple of weeks later, we have another official function, again with lots of other adults, lots of children, and this time, lots of meetings and activities and general chaos. I arrive early, I think, because Mr Faraway and I are supposed to be auditing the books first thing, but instead I discover I seem to be late, and instead we’re rushing around, setting things up.

The whole day goes sort of like that, but since my official role that day is photographer, I just run around taking pictures of whatever happens to be going on that looks interesting, and don’t worry about the schedule or the protocol or any of the rest of it.

When the main meeting begins, I stand in a doorway toward the front of the room, taking pictures of the kids giving their presentations. His daughter, a teenager, is leading this part of the proceedings. I notice he is standing behind me in the doorway, and though I don’t see him there, all I have to do is take a slight step back and to the side and his arm will be over my shoulders, around me.

I stand still and focus on the camera and children, and after a moment, I realize he’s moved to another doorway, in the back of the room.