“Yes, Ruby’s on the Pill,” Sarah had told him when he’d finally brought himself to ask. “No worries there.” Frowning, she’d said, “Do you think we should make Gabe sleep in one of the boys’ rooms after all?” Eli shook his head. Too late for that, he thought.
He tried to tell himself that young love hardly ever lasted. Once the disease loosened its grip and the world opened and Ruby and Gabe realized that there were other people in it, reality would wake them up （with a hard slap to the face, Eli thought, and not a kiss）， and they’d figure out that they were too young to promise each other forever.
Then the vaccines came. The schools and the offices opened, closed, opened again, as the world stutter-stepped toward its new normal. Instead of breaking up, Ruby and Gabe moved in together, leaving Eli to spend most nights sleepless, staring at the ceiling, one part hoping and praying that his daughter wasn’t lying in bed next to her half-brother; another part saying that he just needed to be patient, and that eventually they’d break up, and a third part, cool and smirking, telling Eli that he was well and truly fucked, that he’d skated under karma’s notice for a good long while and now he’d finally be getting what was coming to him.
Ronnie
So you’re sure?” asked Paul Norman, the real estate agent, as he re-capped his pen and put it in his breast pocket. Paul’s hair was more silver than light-brown these days, and his tanned face had seams around the eyes and mouth, but he was just as handsome as he’d been almost forty years ago, when he’d sold her and Lee their summer place.
“I’m sure,” Ronnie replied. “I love it here, but it’s just too much house for me.”
Paul nodded. Ronnie had already given him the tour—the new decks and hot tub, the new outdoor shower, the guesthouse. He’d made notes and snapped pictures, murmuring to himself as he worked. From her spot on the couch in the living room, Ronnie watched as he walked to the windows and stood there, in his white linen shirt and light-blue pants, with his hands in his pockets, looking down at the water. The sun was just starting to set, painting the sky tangerine and saffron, limning Paul in a haze of gold. That had always been her favorite thing, walking up to the third floor just as the sun was setting, raising the blinds to watch its show.
From the look on his face, Paul had found it just as enthralling as she had. “This view,” he said. “It never gets old.”
“No,” Ronnie said quietly. “It never does.”
Paul nodded at the couch, and the stack of books on the coffee table. “This must be your spot, right?”
“I read here,” said Ronnie. “In the mornings, and then when the sun goes down.” That was one of her favorite places, but she also loved the little desk in the pantry, where, beneath a shelf full of cookbooks, she played solitaire on her laptop and paid her bills. She loved her bed; the way she could lie there and hear the ocean through the windows, and the outdoor shower, with the cutouts in its door that let her stand under the spray and catch glimpses of the sea.
Her eyes were stinging. She turned away, hoping Paul wouldn’t notice, and was relieved when he flipped to a fresh page on his pad and pretended to be busy. “I don’t suppose you remember when you had the roof done?” he’d asked.
Ronnie did. She gave him the date, and told him about the neighborhood association, the home-alarm system, and the septic tank, and accepted his condolences on Lee’s death. “I know we sent something—”
“Olive oils and vinegars from Atlantic Spice,” Ronnie said. “They were lovely.”
“But I wanted to tell you in person. Your husband was one of the good guys.”
“Yes.” Ronnie swallowed hard. “He was.” She cleared her throat. “I usually have a glass of wine right about now.” This wasn’t true—Ronnie had never developed a taste for the stuff, and, on the rare occasions that she drank alone, she went straight to the tequila—but she wanted to be a good hostess. “Would you like one?”
Paul gave her a smile. “If you’re offering—”
She went to the kitchen to find a bottle and collect two glasses. While she was pouring, Paul walked along the shelves that lined the living-room wall, inspecting the rows of books, eventually finding two that she’d written. Ronnie cringed, the way she always did when confronted with the evidence of her previous life. The book’s covers looked dated, the fonts out of fashion, the illustrated covers gaudy, the foiled titles garish. Paul picked up one, then the other, and hefted them in his hands.