"She said, "Everything happens for a reason." Technically, that is a statement of fact. The reason I was talking to that woman was that she was friends with David. The reason she was friends with David was that he'd moved to the suburbs, where he didn't know anyone. The reason he didn't know anyone was that his best friends (his real friends) had grown up with him in those same suburbs and vowed never to return, because even though Westchester is tranquil and wonderfully vegetated, there is an empty stillness that falls there every day from New Year's until the crocuses come up that can suck the joy right out of life. Was that what she meant?"