“They flew in,” he added quickly. “To, you know. Keep us company. It was a surprise.”
Six more nights of honeymoon. Six more nights of his mother. And somewhere down in that lobby, Richard was already waiting, quieter than ever.
By lunch, Lena had unpacked her sundresses in the suite next door.
Richard nodded once at me across the lobby, his eyes holding mine longer than they ever had before. Then he vanished behind a newspaper.
At breakfast on day two, Lena reached over my plate to straighten Ethan’s collar.
“Marriage takes practice, sweetheart,” she said, smiling at me. “My son has always needed a certain kind of woman.”
I tightened my grip around my fork.
“Mom means well,” Ethan whispered.
“Does she?”
“Avery, please. Be patient.”
That afternoon by the pool, Lena adjusted her sun hat and looked me over from head to toe.
“Ethan doesn’t like your pale skin, you know. He told me when you started dating.”
My face burned. Across the deck, Richard slowly walked over and placed a glass of cold water on the small table beside my lounger. He did not say a word. He simply left it there, condensation already sliding down the side.
On day three, Lena rearranged the toiletries in our bathroom while we were at lunch.
“I just thought you’d want them by height, dear.”
On the fourth night, just after Ethan and I had crawled back under the covers, there was a soft knock at the door. I opened it in my robe, and Lena swept past me straight to the armchair beside our bed.
“Don’t mind me. I’ll just stay until my son falls asleep.”
“Lena, it’s after twelve.”
“A mother doesn’t watch a clock, Avery.”
I looked at Ethan. He rolled toward the wall and shut his eyes.
I sat on the edge of the mattress for forty minutes while she scrolled through her phone in our bedroom.
On the morning of day five, I found a folded resort map waiting on my lounger, with a small bench in the south garden circled in blue pen. There was no note, no name, only the letter “R.”
I knew who had left it.
I found Richard there before lunch, sitting with his hands folded, staring out at the hedges as if he had been waiting for a long time.
“You came,” he said.
“You knew I would.”
He gestured to the bench beside him. I sat.
“I owe you a thank you,” I said. “For the water. For the dessert last night.”
“The chocolate.”
