My husband was always at work, so I secretly booked an appointment with him as a surprise — but when I saw what he actually did for a living, I nearly fainted.
I.
I’d made the reservation myself, at the small Italian place on Larchmont Avenue where we’d had our first date. I’d bought a new dress. I’d lit the two candles we kept for occasions exactly like this one, and then I’d watched them burn down to nothing on our own dining table after the restaurant called, twice, to ask if we were still coming.
Adrian texted at nine. Emergency came in. I’m so sorry. I’ll explain when I get home.
He didn’t explain when he got home. He came in near midnight, exhausted in a way that looked real enough that I couldn’t bring myself to be angry at his face, only at the shape of the evening itself, and he apologized so thoroughly, so sincerely, that I let it go the way I’d let everything else go for three years.
But something in me had quietly finished waiting by then. Not for him — for an explanation. Three years of “I’ll explain when I get home” and never actually explaining had built up into something I couldn’t keep swallowing on faith alone.
So the next morning, while Adrian was already gone for his six a.m. shift, I did something a little ridiculous.
I searched his name online.
