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The scents of the kitchen tease and promise pleasure, and the gentle hum of conversation and dining is muted by the ancient stone and sumptuous velvet. The candlelight bathes our table in intimacy.
If there were ever a place for sparks, this would be it.
My stomach clenches as I take a slow sip of wine—a Bordeaux. It’s dry and cerebral, a thinking wine rather than a sensual wine. It’s full-bodied and hints of autumn rains sprinkling over wet gravel and black raspberry thorns pricking your fingers as you pluck the fruit free. The prickly, savory flavor dries my mouth and leaves me wishing for a cool sip of water from an island cistern.
“I thought the candlelight might work,” Max says, his voice as dry as the wine. A smile tugs at the corner of his lips.
“I do love it here,” I say, rubbing my finger over the soft weave of the tablecloth.
“I was aiming for sparks, but I think I got a guttering candle.” He gestures to the small votive flame flickering in the glass.
I shake my head. I’ve been distracted all day, the gnawing end-of feel worrying at the edge of every interaction. Even Daniel noticed. He brought me an extra cup of coffee after my morning meeting and told me I looked like I could use a good night’s sleep, but in lieu of rest I should have an espresso. And Mila, when she climbed from the car for her last day of camp, ran back and gave me a tight hug, saying, “Don’t worry, Mummy, I don’t mind that camp’s over. There’s next year too.”
Max picks up his fork and spears a thin medallion of steak. He contemplates the wine sauce and then drops his fork without eating and looks back up at me.
“I’m involved in a new project, working with a designer.”
I lift my eyebrows. Max has that light in his eyes he gets when he’s chasing a new design line or a new acquisition, or even a new idea to explore.
“Tell me about it.”
“It’s a ring,” he says, studying me carefully. He pulls a piece of paper from his suit coat interior pocket—the one that rests against his heart. The white paper is folded into a small square.
He hands it to me.
The paper’s still warm from resting against his chest. I open it up and it crinkles in my hands as I smooth it out.
On the page is the design for a ring. It has a double band made of lustrous yellow gold, and it cradles a large ruby ringed by diamonds. The ruby is the exact shade of my Bordeaux flickering in the candlelight.
It’s an engagement ring. A beautiful engagement ring that speaks of love and friendship and hope. A flickering hope.
“What do you think of it?” Max asks. “Just in case.”
“In case of sparks?” I look up from the paper crinkling in my hand.
He nods. “Although I might give it to you even if there aren’t sparks. It could be your Christmas present.”
I fold the paper back into its many-creased square. “What? I thought you were getting me a bread maker for Christmas. You swore you would after the last loaf I burned turned into an inedible brick.”
I smile at him and he lifts a shoulder. “I like bread that I can chew. It’s a failing of mine. If you keep making me eat your baking, I’ll keep threatening to buy you cooking tools.”
I laugh and he grins at me then, taking the paper back and slipping it into his suit pocket. His shoulders relax and he finally takes a bite of his dinner.
“Not bad,” he says, chewing the steak.
I’m having the salmon. I shouldn’t have, though, because it tastes nothing like the grilled fish I ate last night. It’s a poor imitation of a freshly caught fish grilled on charcoal and sprinkled with lime juice.
“Mila starts school on Monday?” Max asks.
I push my fork through the butter pooling around the tiny round potatoes. “She does. She’s ecstatic.”
“Summer’s over,” he muses. “As a kid I loved the end of summer. It meant I’d get to leave for school and not come home until Christmas. It was my favorite time of year, that goodbye.”
I think about Daniel. At age twelve my dad sent him to boarding school too. He was shuttled off to England, and I was left at sixteen without my little brother for the first time since he was two. My dad didn’t think I needed boarding school. Instead I was kept in Geneva at an international school, close to home. I hated the end of summer after Daniel turned twelve. It meant our days of roaming mountain meadows, sprinting around the flower clock, and spending hours at the beach (him in the lake and me on the swing) were over. Our childhood was over.
Two years later I was at university. Then Daniel was at Oxford. And we didn’t see each other except for when my dad took us sailing. And then Dad was dead and I was pregnant and Abry was failing.
But all that ending, it made space for something new.
