Chapter 11 — No One Was Betting Anymore

Nathan was quiet when we ran out of milk.

That was one of the first things I learned.

He put it on the shopping list, drank his coffee black, and occasionally returned with bread we hadn't needed because he'd passed a bakery.

I learned less convenient things, too. He left measuring tapes in coat pockets. When a restoration problem worried him, he became distracted and forgot to answer questions until I said his name twice.

The first time I told him it made me feel invisible, he listened.

The next evening, he put his work notes away before dinner.

He didn't always get it right. Neither did I.

I once corrected him so sharply about a train booking that he set down his phone.

"I made a mistake," he said. "You don't have to speak to me like I'm trying to trap you."

I apologized.

Then we changed the tickets together.

There was no prize for proving one of us wrong.

That winter, I signed a lease on an apartment with a second bedroom. Mom visited in the spring, after her care team agreed she was well enough for the trip and we arranged what she would need while she was away.

Denise traveled with her and announced that she was staying long enough to determine whether Irish grocery stores understood decent tomatoes.

Nathan took the afternoon off to meet them.

Mom hugged him at arrivals. He looked startled, then pleased.

"You've got taller," she said.

"Since last summer?"

"Since you used to steal biscuits from my kitchen."

"I thought those were offered freely."

"You thought a great many things at twenty."

He carried her bag while Denise handed me a container of cookies that had survived the flight better than her patience.

That evening, Mom watched Nathan wash dishes while I reviewed a work report at the table.

"You don't have to do all of those," she told him.

"I cooked badly. I'm making amends."

"The chicken was fine," I said.

"The chicken was dry. You're being loyal."

Mom smiled into her tea.

Later, when he went home, she sat beside me on the sofa.

"You look tired," she said.

"We had a release this week."

"You also look happy."

I leaned against her.

"I am."

She rested her cheek on my hair.

Neither of us felt obliged to say more.

Nathan asked me to marry him eighteen months after the ceremony in Wicklow.

We were in his kitchen. The oven timer had gone off twice, and he'd just admitted there was a ring in the drawer beside the tea towels.

"I had a plan," he said.

"Did it involve dinner?"

"Dinner going considerably better."

I opened the drawer.

The ring was simple, a small stone set low enough that it wouldn't catch on everything I touched.

"I can take it back if you don't like it," he said.

I turned around.

"Are you asking me or trying to arrange a return?"

He laughed, then took the box from my hand.

"I'm asking you. Will you marry me?"

This time, I knew the life behind the question.

I knew what happened when I said no. I knew what happened when I earned more, worked late, cried without explaining, or disagreed with him in front of other people.

I knew he would still be there when the answer wasn't convenient.

"Yes," I said.

He kissed me before putting the ring on. I held his face between my hands and kissed him again.

The smoke alarm interrupted us.

We ate toast for dinner.

We completed the necessary marriage arrangements and married the following summer, with Mom and Denise beside us and a small group of friends who knew exactly what they were celebrating.

Nathan wanted vows. I wanted a good meal and shoes I could walk in. We both wanted the date written on every invitation correctly.

Maeve helped us arrange it.

"No surprise changes?" she asked.

"Not one," I said.

Mom cried when we exchanged rings. Denise got the kiss on camera this time.

Afterward, we signed the marriage documents.

I wrote Audrey Bennett in the space provided and passed the pen to Nathan.

He signed beside me.

There was nothing hurried about it.

At the end of my third year in Dublin, my manager asked me to join a meeting with the regional director.

Our team had rebuilt a failing platform, cut the emergency workload, and trained enough people that success no longer depended on one exhausted engineer answering every midnight call.

They offered me the director position overseeing the next phase.

I asked about the responsibilities, the authority, and the salary.

Then I accepted.

Nathan met me outside the office that evening with a bottle of wine in a shopping bag.

"For dinner," he said. "Not for drinking outside your workplace. Apparently, that's frowned upon."

I put my arms around him.

"I got it."

"I know. You sent six exclamation marks."

"Only six?"

"I assumed you were exercising restraint."

He kissed me, and we walked home to call Mom.

That autumn, I returned to Boston for a company meeting. Nathan came with me, combining the trip with a visit to his sister. We stayed with Mom for the final weekend.

At a dinner with former colleagues, someone mentioned Preston.

I hadn't heard his name in months.

He'd returned from Ireland after our last meeting. By then, missed deadlines and neglected client work had become more than his father could dismiss as a personal crisis. The board removed him from his management role. His father refused to create another position for him.

Later, he and Sienna married.

The colleague telling me this paused, checking my face.

"You don't have to keep going," I said.

"Sorry. I just thought you might already know. They separated recently. It sounds like they spent most of the marriage blaming each other."

I looked down at my glass.

I could imagine it. I didn't need to.

"I hope they sort themselves out," I said.

Then I asked about the colleague's daughter, who had started college that September.

The conversation moved on.

At Mom's house the next morning, I found my old graduation photograph on the bookshelf. The frame Nathan had helped me unpack stood beside it: the chapel in Wicklow, sunlight across the floor, my hand in his.

Mom had kept both.

I touched the edge of the second frame.

For years, I'd thought that day would matter because it proved Preston had lost me.

Now I liked the photograph because I remembered how the flowers smelled, how Nathan's jacket felt beneath my fingers, and how Mom had laughed through the tablet.

Nathan called from the kitchen.

"Audrey, where would you like to go next summer?"

I joined him at the table. Two mugs sat beside an open calendar.

"I haven't decided."

"Neither have I."

He moved the calendar between us and handed me a pencil.

"We have time."

I sat down beside my husband.

Then we began choosing together.

The End