Chapter 3

“It’s nothing.”

Last night, Ava’s return had changed nothing.

This morning, our anniversary had become a structural inspection, our plans had been moved without me, and my husband was still keeping promises I had never known existed.

For the next three nights, Caleb worked on Ava’s house after dinner.

He covered our dining table with sketches and measurements. His coffee went cold beside him while he erased lines, redrew them, and checked the time only after midnight.

“I thought you were inspecting the foundation,” I said on the third night.

“The renovation is more complicated than she expected.”

“Is she paying you for all this work?”

Caleb didn’t look up.

“That isn’t the point.”

The following morning, he left without the lunch I had packed for him.

I could have put it back in the refrigerator.

Instead, I closed the flower shop for an hour and drove to Shore Road.

Ava’s house stood above the ocean, weathered gray boards facing the water. The front door was open. I heard Ava laugh before I reached it.

I knocked against the doorframe.

Neither of them heard me.

They were standing over a temporary worktable in the empty living room. Ava leaned close to Caleb, one hand resting beside his drawings.

“I used to hate that wall,” she said. “You can only see half the sunset from here.”

Caleb turned the plans toward her.

“So we remove it.”

Ava stared at the page.

The design showed an entire section of the wall replaced with glass. Beyond it, a new platform extended toward the ocean.

“You did all this already?”

“The support work will take time, but it can be done.”

Ava threw her arms around him.

The embrace lasted only a second. Caleb’s hands stayed at her shoulders before he stepped back.

There was nothing romantic enough to accuse him of.

That almost made it worse.

Three years earlier, I had asked Caleb to help me add a west-facing window to the flower shop. The afternoon light never reached the back display, so I carried buckets of daisies and herbs across the room twice a day.

Caleb had inspected the wall for less than five minutes.

“The existing window is functional,” he’d said.

Adding another would cost more than the light was worth.

I had agreed. He was the architect. I was only the woman moving the flowers.

Now he was willing to remove an entire wall so Ava could watch the sunset.

Caleb finally noticed me.

“Nora?”

Ava turned.

Caleb’s gaze dropped to the paper bag in my hand.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”

I had brought lunch to my husband, yet somehow I was the person who should have announced herself.

“You left this at home.”

Ava smiled quickly.

“You should stay. We were just going over the design.”

We.

As if they were rebuilding something together and I had arrived after the decisions were made.

I handed the bag to Caleb.

“I brought this for my husband. You can decide who eats it.”

His expression tightened.

“Nora, wait.”

Ava’s eyes moved over my face, then paused at my hair.

I had cut it short during the first year of my marriage. Caleb had told me it suited me. I had remembered the compliment because he gave so few of them.

Ava touched the ends of her own short blond hair.

“Caleb always did have a type.”

“Ava,” he warned.

She lifted one shoulder.

“It was a joke.”

I left before either of them could explain it into something harmless.

Back at the flower shop, I opened our wedding album.

In every photograph, I held white tulips.

I had wanted daisies. Caleb had said tulips looked more appropriate for a wedding, and I had let him choose.

The charity committee had uploaded more old photographs that morning.

In one of them, Ava stood beside seventeen-year-old Caleb with white tulips in her arms.

For the first time, I wondered how much of my wedding had been chosen for a woman who wasn’t there.