A message from Connor lit up the screen:
"Babe, I'm all washed up and waiting for you. Tonight we do it however you like best."
Cicely closed her eyes, as if she'd finally made up her mind.
Gently, she pried my fingers loose.
"Be good. There really is an emergency at the office. The second it's handled, I'll come home to you."
I watched my own hand slip, inch by inch, out of her palm.
The ache in my chest spread until it went numb.
But Cicely, as if afraid I'd be hurt, soothed me in a low voice:
"Tomorrow I'll come back and make it up to you properly."
"Haven't you always wanted to go to the amusement park?"
"I'll rent out the whole place tomorrow and spend the entire day with you."
I stared at her, dazed.
Three years ago, I really had said I wanted to go to an amusement park.
Connor had spent three days at Disney, and posted a full grid of nine photos.
In one of them, a woman's arm showed only halfway, holding up Mickey and Minnie balloons for him.
His caption read: "Someone spoils me like I'm a little kid."
Back then I'd looked at those photos and couldn't help asking Cicely:
"When you're not so busy, let's go to an amusement park too, okay?"
Cicely had stroked my hair, her voice tender.
"Okay."
"Once you've recovered, I'll rent the whole place and take you."
After that I waited, one year and then another.
Until my body really had healed, until spring had passed, and summer too.
Until that amusement park had been renovated three times over.
And Cicely still never took me.
Every time I brought it up, she'd kiss my forehead.
"Next time, once I'm not so busy."
"Be good, Gilbert. It's so crowded there. I don't want you wearing yourself out."
So it wasn't the crowds she was worried about.
And it wasn't me wearing myself out.
She'd simply already seen the castle and the fireworks with another man.
So my one wish became a "next time" she could put off forever.
And now, she'd finally remembered it.
On the very night she was about to run to Connor.
The thought of it, oddly, left me calm.
All that bitterness, that nausea, that pain, sank to the bottom of the water in a single instant.
I looked at Cicely.
I looked at the woman I'd once believed I could entrust my whole life to.
Then, gently, I let go.
"Go."
After Cicely left, I dragged the cardboard box downstairs.
One thing at a time, into the trash bin.
When I reached the string of prayer beads, I stood there a long while.
It was the first thing Cicely had brought back from the snowy mountains after I woke from the car accident.
Back then her palms were split from the cold, her forehead scraped raw, and she'd knelt at my hospital bed, her voice wrecked beyond recognition.
"Gilbert, I prayed you back."
"From now on I'll never let you suffer the smallest bit of pain."
I'd held her and cried, truly believing someone had snatched me back from the hands of the gods.
I'd worn it against my skin for five years.
Now, looking back, it was almost funny.
If the gods were real, they'd have known that when she knelt, I wasn't the only one in her heart.
The next morning Cicely came back, still carrying Connor's cologne on her.
She saw the half-emptied cabinet, and her steps faltered.
"Gilbert, where are your things?"
I looked at her and was about to speak.
Her phone rang, and Connor's name flashed across the screen.
Cicely cut it off on reflex.
She seemed to finally notice how pale I looked, and reached out to feel my forehead.
"Are you feeling sick again?"
But before her fingertips could touch me, her phone rang once more.
This time it was a video call.
Cicely hesitated two seconds, then still turned away from me and answered.
The door just hadn't latched all the way, and through the gap I saw.
Connor stood before a mirror in a white suit, his eyes rimmed red.
