Page 41 of Ricardo

“My parents liked what he represented.”

“Ambition. Status.”

“And the right photographs,” she says, with a tired little smile that does not reach her eyes. “He was very good in photographs.”

I look at her, at the careful way she says it, and I hear everything she is choosing not to say.

“I imagine you were too,” I say.

Her smile fades.

“Yes,” she says. “That was part of the problem.”

I do not like the sound of that.

I also know better than to comment on it.

She looks down at the towel in her lap and smooths one damp corner with her thumb. “People like a pretty couple. They like a perfect story they can tell over dinner.”

“But you became part of his story.”

“Exactly. I became one of his assets.” Her voice stays even, but her fingers press harder into the towel.

She laughs once, quietly.

“I thought I was helping build something. Then one day, I realized I was mostly helping build him.”

I look at her hands, then back at her face. “That is a hard thing to admit.”

“It is harder to admit how long it took me.”

“You left.”

Her eyes lift to mine.

I keep my voice quiet. “Maybe it took time. You still left.”

For a moment, she says nothing. Then she lets out a slow breath and looks away, toward the dark windows and the city beyond them.

“Yes,” she says. “I did.”

After a moment, she adds, “Dante helped me.”

I keep my expression carefully blank. I did not know that.

I knew Dante had recommended her for the job. I knew they were close once and close again now. I knew my son watched her with more care than he gave most people.

But I did not know he had been there at the moment she left.

“Oh?” I say.

She swallows, still looking toward the windows. “I hadn’t spoken to him in a couple of years. Not really. After I got with Harrison, my friendships just kind of faded away. It's like it just became part of his life, and my own life faded.”

Her mouth tightens like she hates the taste of the words.

“Harrison hated my friends. Especially Dante.”

I say nothing, though several feelings move through me at once.