He learned not to try to solve a problem unless I asked him to.
I learned that his public confidence disappeared whenever Fiona asked him to draw something because he was terrible at drawing.
He had money most people could hardly imagine.
Yet the things that made me trust him were almost embarrassingly ordinary.
He knocked before entering the guesthouse.
He returned things where he found them.
He never read over my shoulder.
When he disagreed with me, he said so without punishing me for disagreeing back.
The first time he kissed me, we were standing beside the kitchen sink.
No photographers.
No champagne.
No dramatic confession.
Fiona was asleep upstairs.
I had been telling him that I was looking for an apartment because the case was almost finished and I wanted a place that felt like mine.
He nodded.
“That makes sense.”
I had expected him to argue.
He didn’t.
Then he said, “I’m going to miss having you nearby.”
I looked at him.
“I’ll probably miss you too.”
“Probably?”
“Don’t get arrogant.”
He smiled.
And then he kissed me.
Slowly.
Like he was asking.
I kissed him back.
Six months after the flight, Fiona and I moved into a small house of our own about twenty minutes from Luca’s property.
I could have stayed in his guesthouse.
I could have moved into the main house.
I chose neither.
I wanted keys that were mine.
Bills that came in my name.
A front door nobody could change without me knowing.
The house was not grand.
It had three bedrooms, slightly uneven hardwood floors, an old maple in the backyard, and a kitchen drawer that refused to close unless you lifted it first.
I loved it immediately.
Luca understood why.
For Fiona’s sixth birthday, he gave her a golden retriever puppy.
I told him it was an outrageous gift.
He reminded me that she had asked for socks too.
The puppy was named Pancake.
That was Fiona’s decision.
David called on her birthday.
His relationship with Fiona was still complicated.
So was mine with him.
He had stopped sending angry messages.
We communicated mostly through a parenting app, which might be the least romantic invention in human history and one of the most useful.
He kept his scheduled weekends.
Sometimes Fiona came home excited.
Sometimes she came home quiet.
I learned not to interrogate her.
