To what convulsion, to what accident, do we owe that encounter? For those, like C., who believe in God, or in a universe otherwise ordered in part by watchful and benevolent forces, such meetings, like all wonderful finds, have a straightforward explanation: they are blessings, godsends, miracles. The lover and the beloved were meant for each other—indeed, in a very literal sense, made for each other—and their encounter was never not going to happen. In that vein, you sometimes hear couples say that they were destined to meet. But among those of us without that faith, and perhaps even among
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