“All right.”
I moved my place setting to the far end.
Noah watched me for a moment.
“Claire, aren’t you sitting by Dad?”
“Not tonight, sweetheart.”
He frowned.
“But you made dinner.”
“I know.”
He looked toward his father.
Then Vanessa called him over to show him photographs from a school event.
The conversation resumed.
But the seat beside Ethan remained occupied by the woman who’d once been his wife.
And I spent the first twenty minutes of dinner watching the two of them behave as though nothing unusual had happened.
Vanessa touched Ethan’s arm whenever she laughed.
He leaned toward her when she spoke.
They referred to places they’d visited together recently, then stopped explaining whenever I asked a question.
At one point, Vanessa mentioned a little Italian restaurant near the river.
“The tiramisu was wonderful,” she said.
Ethan smiled.
“It really was.”
I looked up.
“When did you go there?”
Vanessa reached for her water.
“A while ago.”
Ethan said, “After Noah’s school conference.”
I remembered that evening.
I’d picked Noah up from soccer practice, helped him finish his homework, and taken him to a scheduled dental appointment the next morning.
Ethan had told me he and Vanessa were discussing Noah’s academic progress.
He hadn’t mentioned dinner.
“Was that the night you came home after eleven?” I asked.
