“Don’t bother packing.” He takes a long pull and sets the glass back down with a clean little click, then swallows and smacks his lips. “We’ll get you everything you need when we arrive. I’m sure there’s a boutique at the resort or something.”
I let my fork settle on my plate. I can feel a thrumming start up at the base of my skull. “All of it?” I ask lightly. “What about?—”
“All of it. Toothbrush, swimsuit, sundresses. Don’t bring a thing.” He waves a hand, as if he’s being generous and spontaneous. “Travel light, for once. Doesn’t that sound nice?”
Nice? No, that does not sound nice at all.
It sounds, I think, like a husband telling his wife she won’t need her own clothes because she will not be alive long enough to need them.
“Sure,” I hear myself say from very far away. “Light is nice. That sounds lovely, Raymond. Thank you.”
“That’s a good girl.”
I lift my seltzer instead and smile at him over the rim. He nods in satisfaction, then goes to pour himself a third bourbon from the decanter at his elbow.
Which is perfect timing, really. A third bourbon is exactly what I needed him to pour.
“I’ll get you some water with that,” I say sweetly, rising. “You’ll want to be hydrated for the flight.”
He grunts in response, already having moved on in his head, it seems.
I clear our plates. In the kitchen, I run the tap, fill a tall glass, set it on the counter, and then I take the little pill out from where it’s been living all afternoon—not in my tampon drawer anymore, but in the pocket of my apron, taped to the inside, where my fingers have brushed it over and over again this evening to make sure it’s still there.
I crush it up on the cutting board and sweep the powder into the glass. Then I use the espresso milk frother to stir it all up until, presto change-o, the medicine is invisible to the naked eye. Simply a glass of water again.
The last glass he’ll ever have.
I bring it out to him and set it down. “Water for the gentleman,” I joke.
He eyes me strangely. “How unusually attentive of you.”
“I’m allowed to be attentive to my husband, aren’t I?”
He looks at me for a long time. The candlelight does strange things to his face. It scoops the shadows out from under his eyes and pools them in the hollows of his cheeks. In this light, I see him for what he is, which is a man who killed my sister and would kill me, too, without losing a wink of sleep over it.
He picks up the glass. He swirls. He sniffs.
In the interim, I die briefly and come back to life.
Then, at last, he drinks.
I have to retreat back into the kitchen to hide my relief. For the next five minutes, I busy myself with torching the tops of the ramekins of our crème brûlée, watching as the sugar bubbles up into a fine amber gloss.
“Here you are, honey,” I say as I float back out. He doesn’t look any different to me, but these things aren’t immediate, especially not for a man with his bulk.
But then, with each successive bite of dessert, he starts to slow down. His spoon scrapes a little less neatly. He blinks a little longer than normal. He sets the spoon down halfway through, reaches for his water glass ,and misses by an inch, knocking it sideways with his elbow instead. Water spreads across the walnut in a clear, glossy puddle.
“Hm,” he says, with mild surprise, glancing down at his own hand in confusion. “I missed.”
“Let me get a towel.”
“No, leave it. Leave it.” He stands and sways, coughs, lurches. His hand finds the back of his chair to brace himself, and a brief frown carves itself between his eyebrows. “I think— Cassandra, I think I might be coming down with something.”
“You’ve had a long week, Raymond,” I say calmly.
“Have I?” He squints at me. “Yes. I suppose I have.”
“Let me get you to bed.” I stand up to cup my hand under his arm, guiding him along. He sags against me with a vulnerabilityand docility I’ve never seen in him before. It’s oddly childlike. “Come on. There you go. One foot in front of the other.”
