He gave me a small, grateful smile. When he spoke, he choked up a little. “I could never ask you to abandon your life, darling.”
“I know. But you didn’t ask.”
He opened his arms, and I stepped into them gladly. And he didn’t feel like a stranger to me, anymore.
* * * *
Despite the mild jet lag and the weird effect of having a sun that never fully set, I managed to get a few hours of sleep. The downside was that, when I woke, I had no idea what time it was, because it was still freaking light out. I slapped the nightstand futilely until my fingers hit my phone. It was four-thirty in the morning, and Neil wasn’t in bed with me.
I tried to not feel immediate dread, or think of all the ways he could have hurt himself. I pulled on the robe that matched my slinky satin nightgown, the blue Carine Gilson he’d given to me in this very room the night he’d proposed. I tied the sash at my waist as I headed down the stairs, to the second floor. I checked in on Olivia, expecting to find Neil with her, but she was still asleep, her soft baby snores releasing with every fall of her chubby tummy.
“I’m in here, Sophie,” I heard from down the hall. I wondered if he’d been listening for me, if he’d known I would come looking. I closed Olivia’s door quietly and padded down to the study. I hadn’t noticed that the light was on. Inside, Neil sat at an iMac, the large screen illuminating the room almost as much as the small desk lamp did.
“Are you working?” I asked, my throat raw, probably from sleeping with my mouth open.
He looked up at me over the tops of the glasses he wore when he didn’t have his contacts in. “Hmm? No. I just couldn’t sleep. Someone was doing an incredible amount of snoring up there.”
“Shut up.” I laughed. I peered over his shoulder. On the screen was a picture of Emma. A younger Emma, with a pink streak in her hair, but unmistakably her.
My expression must have given away the stab of alarm I felt, because he said quietly, “I’m just revisiting some memories. I’m not saying goodbye, or anything of the sort.”
“I didn’t think—” I began, but I didn’t finish. Because I had thought, for a moment, that he was doing that.
“I’ve had a very difficult time even thinking of her lately,” he went on. “Or I was having. We were told in grief counseling that, one day, we would be able to look at pictures of our lost loved ones and remember the good times, rather than the bad.”
“That’s the same thing Rudy told you,” I reminded him. It was a nice sentiment, but just that. It had only been six months since Emma’s death. If Neil believed he was already through his grief, he was fooling himself.
I had to test it. “Is today that day?”
He scrolled to another photo, Emma proudly beaming at the camera while cuddling a bunny. She had on a shirt that read something in Icelandic, but I guessed from the large red no sign over it that it probably had something to do with protesting animal testing. Neil let out a long, weary sigh. “No. It’s not today. I just needed to see her.”
“Do you mind if I stay?” I didn’t know how I would feel if he sent me away. Nervous, for sure, but a time was going to have to come that I could trust him. I could let that be tonight.
He smiled sadly at me and reached for my hand. I gave it to him, and he pulled it to his mouth to kiss it. “I meant it when I said I didn’t want to be alone, anymore. Stay.”
The sick dread in my chest eased. I pulled one of the sleek black enameled chairs near the bookcase to sit beside Neil at the desk.
He clicked another folder, and it opened on pictures of a wedding. It wasn’t our wedding, or Emma’s.
“Oh, these might not—” he began, and I waved my hand.
“I know you were married before. I’m not threatened by your ex-wife.” That was kind of a fib; I was growing mature enough in my late twenties to recognize that I felt threatened by any woman I suspected of knowing my husband better than I did, past or present. Recent events had exacerbated that, but at least I owned it.
I vaguely recognized the stunning blonde on Neil’s arm in the first photo. The only other time I’d ever seen his ex-wife was when she stood crying on the sidewalk outside of the baby store, but she was definitely the same woman in the frosty highlights and expertly applied makeup. Her dress was lacy and beaded and tight and strapless, a bridal abomination I allowed her a pass for, because her arms were Michelle Obama toned. Neil stood beside her, looking more like the man I’d met at the airport than the man he was now. His big, stupidly besotted smile warmed me all over, even though it was directed at a different woman, one he’d been madly in love with before he’d been madly in love with me.
“Wasn’t she beautiful?” he said quietly, and it took me a split second of horror before I realized that he wasn’t looking at Elizabeth. He was looking at Emma, captured in the margin of the photo. Her lilac bridesmaid dress made her sun-kissed shoulders practically glow, and her hair, in a pixie cut, turned her into a little elf against the backdrop of th
e lush grass and the water beyond. Neil’s first wedding had been in Italy, in a castle. Emma had probably outshone every breathtaking vista and medieval arch.
He clicked to the next photo. Emma sat at a table, a half-finished piece of cake in front of her. I didn’t recognize the guy next to her, but he was a cutie, with dark skin and thick dreads pulled back. He had his arm around her shoulders, and she leaned her head in toward him. Their smiles and body language were the perfect picture of a very young couple in love, without a care in the world.
“That was Jason,” Neil said with a note of fondness. “He was a nice young man. A bit of a kiss-ass, but a good chap.”
“A kiss-ass?” I pretended to be surprised. “While dating your daughter?”
Neil made a noncommittal noise and clicked rapidly through the next few pictures, of him and Elizabeth dancing beneath the high arched ceiling of a room in the castle. He shot a quick glance at me as he did so, as though he had something to hide. I knew it bothered him that I hadn’t splurged on some elaborate destination princess wedding, but it couldn’t have been more perfect if we’d had our ceremony at Versailles.
He found another picture of Emma, dancing with Jason, and murmured, “I don’t know why she finished with him. He went off with the Peace Corps, but I don’t know…”