Chap­ter 43 begins with Don’s unex­pect­ed apol­o­gy as he sits down to meet Eve­lyn. She had already ordered her iced tea and tak­en a few bites of a sour pick­le, think­ing that his apol­o­gy was mere­ly for being late, some­thing that didn’t seem nec­es­sary. How­ev­er, when Don’s apol­o­gy comes with a weight that feels dif­fer­ent, it catch­es her off guard. He is notice­ably thin­ner than before, his pale face show­ing the marks of a man who has seen bet­ter days. Time had not been kind to Don, and the years apart had tak­en a toll, both phys­i­cal­ly and emo­tion­al­ly. His once charm­ing appear­ance, which had always been strik­ing, now had a worn qual­i­ty, yet there was still some­thing mag­net­ic about him. Even now, his pres­ence seemed to draw atten­tion in a way that only some­one with his par­tic­u­lar brand of charis­ma could.

Don begins by telling Eve­lyn that he’s been sober for 256 days, a state­ment that hits hard­er than he per­haps antic­i­pat­ed. His con­fes­sion isn’t just about his past mis­takes but is a gen­uine admis­sion of self-aware­ness. Eve­lyn, though caught off guard by the depth of his apol­o­gy, still feels a need to remind him of all the pain he caused her and oth­ers. His his­to­ry of being a cheater, his unkind­ness, and the emo­tion­al toll he took on her—she couldn’t let those things be erased by a mere apol­o­gy. Don takes full respon­si­bil­i­ty for these actions, acknowl­edg­ing that he failed her and that he can­not take back what was done. This apol­o­gy feels gen­uine, but it’s also over­whelm­ing because Eve­lyn came to him for a pro­fes­sion­al matter—wanting to dis­cuss work­ing togeth­er on a movie, not to revis­it the wounds of their past.

The wait­ress arrives to take their orders, and Eve­lyn choos­es a Reuben sand­wich, rec­og­niz­ing that if she’s going to engage in a mean­ing­ful con­ver­sa­tion about Don’s apol­o­gy and what comes next, she needs some­thing sub­stan­tial to eat. Don orders the same, and as they speak, it becomes clear that the wait­ress knows exact­ly who they are. There’s a sub­tle recog­ni­tion in the way she holds back a smile, try­ing to remain pro­fes­sion­al in front of the famous duo. Once the wait­ress leaves, Don con­tin­ues, say­ing that his apol­o­gy can’t erase the past, but that he’s work­ing every day to be a bet­ter man, hop­ing that it brings Eve­lyn some sense of com­fort. But Eve­lyn, ever prac­ti­cal, responds by say­ing that being a bet­ter man now doesn’t make up for the pain he caused. His trans­for­ma­tion, though com­mend­able, comes too late to undo the emo­tion­al dam­age, and she is stead­fast in her belief that an apol­o­gy alone doesn’t heal the scars.

Don, how­ev­er, insists that he is com­mit­ted to chang­ing and not repeat­ing the mis­takes of his past. He promis­es he will nev­er hurt any­one the way he hurt her, or Ruby, again. His words, though earnest, begin to soft­en Evelyn’s hard exte­ri­or, if only briefly. Still, she isn’t ready to for­give him just yet, and she makes it clear that actions speak loud­er than words. She reminds him that if things had gone dif­fer­ent­ly in his life—if his career hadn’t crashed and burned, if Ari Sul­li­van hadn’t dropped him the way he had orches­trat­ed for her—he might still be liv­ing a reck­less, unre­pen­tant life. The fact that he was here, apol­o­giz­ing, was the direct result of his fall from grace, and Eve­lyn was under no illu­sion about that. He had only come to this place because life had forced him to, not because he had made an effort to change on his own.

Don, sens­ing her skep­ti­cism, shares a deeply per­son­al reflec­tion: that he loved her from the moment he met her. He con­fess­es that his love for her was intense, almost con­sum­ing, and that he ruined it by becom­ing some­one he could no longer rec­og­nize. The guilt of his actions haunts him, and he wish­es he could go back to their wed­ding day and make things right. This long­ing for redemp­tion, for a sec­ond chance, is some­thing he knows is impos­si­ble. But, in this moment, he offers Eve­lyn the one thing he has left: a sin­cere apol­o­gy, deliv­ered from the bot­tom of his heart. He wants her to know how incred­i­ble he believes she is, how great they were togeth­er, and how deeply he regrets the way he treat­ed her.

Eve­lyn lis­tens to him, her emo­tions con­flict­ed. Part of her is touched by his vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, but anoth­er part of her feels a sense of dis­tance. She can­not sim­ply let go of the past and allow this new ver­sion of Don to take away the pain that still lingers. His words, though heart­felt, are not enough to erase the years of hurt, of betray­al, and of aban­don­ment. Still, there is some­thing deeply human in Don’s con­fes­sion, some­thing that makes Eve­lyn won­der if she is capa­ble of for­give­ness. How­ev­er, she remains guard­ed, unwill­ing to trust that the man sit­ting across from her is tru­ly the man he claims to be now. He is ask­ing for redemp­tion, but it is clear to her that redemp­tion is a long road, and it doesn’t come eas­i­ly.

As the con­ver­sa­tion winds down, Eve­lyn is left with a mix­ture of emo­tions. She rec­og­nizes that Don has changed, at least on some lev­el, but she also under­stands that change isn’t always enough to undo the past. The jour­ney toward heal­ing is a per­son­al one, and while Don’s apol­o­gy is a step in the right direc­tion, Eve­lyn knows that it will take more than words to heal the wounds he left behind. She stands firm in her con­vic­tion that no mat­ter how much he regrets his actions, the dam­age can­not be undone by a sim­ple apol­o­gy. Nonethe­less, Eve­lyn begins to feel a shift with­in her­self, won­der­ing if it’s pos­si­ble to find peace with the past, or if some wounds are sim­ply too deep to ever ful­ly heal.