I stopped halfway to the stairs.
“Seven-thirty again?”
“Avery.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You said it with your face. You’ve always had a very loud face.”
Downstairs, Chloe was setting the table with the good plates — the Lenox, the ones that came out for company and Thanksgiving.
My daughter has my mother’s cheekbones and her father’s stubborn chin, and for the last month or so she’d been watching Richard the way a cat watches a screen door.
“Cinderella’s coming to dinner,” she announced, folding a napkin into something that was supposed to be a swan.
“Be nice.”
“I’m being extremely nice. I’m just observing that the man runs on a Cinderella schedule.”
“Chloe.”
“What? He does!” She held the napkin up and squinted at it. “Every Sunday. Boom. Seven-thirty, out the door like the pumpkin’s about to go. And I’m only half joking, Mom, which you know, because you’ve noticed too.”
I opened my mouth to defend him.
Then I closed it, because she wasn’t wrong.
Six months of Sunday dinners. Not once — not one single time — had that man stayed past 7:30.
He was always gracious about it. He always had a reason. The problem was that the reasons kept changing, like somebody dealing a new hand every week.
“Put out the water glasses,” I said.
“Deflection.”
I gave her the look. She grinned and got the glasses.
Then Mom came down the stairs, and Chloe let out a low whistle, and my mother swatted at her and turned pink and asked whether the lipstick was too much.
It wasn’t. It was exactly right. She looked ten years younger than she had at Christmas.
The Sunday I Started Watching Him Like a Detective
Richard arrived at 5:00 exactly, the way he always did, with daisies in one hand and a bottle of the sparkling grape juice Chloe liked because she wasn’t old enough for wine.
He shook my hand. He kissed my mother’s cheek. He asked Chloe how the Reconstruction paper was coming and then listened to the answer.
On paper, the man was wonderful.
And at 7:29, he’d be gone.
Chloe caught my eye across the kitchen while he was in the living room with Mom. She didn’t say anything. She just tapped two fingers on her wrist, mouthed seven-three-zero, and raised one eyebrow so high it nearly hit her hairline.
I turned back to the stove and stirred gravy that did not need stirring, because somewhere under my ribs a small tight knot had started pulling.
The next Sunday, I watched him the way you’d watch a suspect through the glass.
He carved the roast beautifully — really beautifully, thin and even, the way my dad used to. And he checked his watch three times between slices.
“Big plans tonight, Richard?” I asked, passing the potatoes.
“Oh, nothing exciting. I’ve got a client in Singapore, believe it or not. Eight o’clock call.”
