1. Nora
— ? —
Nora
The Cold Year - Ending Tonight
The red dress still has the tags on it.
I’m standing in my closet, staring at it like it might bite me. Six months it’s been hanging here. Six months since I bought it for our anniversary, spent two hours in the dressing room, sent Sophia seven mirror selfies.
This one, I’d finally decided. This is the one that makes me feel like myself again.
The tags stayed on because returning it would mean admitting something I wasn’t ready to admit.
Tonight, I’m putting it on.
***
“Dante.” I was sitting across from him at the kitchen island, coffee growing cold. A Sunday morning three months ago, and I’d been rehearsing this conversation for weeks. “Dante, I need to talk to you.”
He looked up from his phone. Set it down. “What’s wrong?”
“I think we’re in trouble.”
“What do you mean?”
“Us. Our marriage.” My hands were shaking, so I wrapped them around my mug. “I feel like I’m disappearing. Like you’re building this huge life, and I’m just… not in it anymore.”
His brow furrowed. He reached across the island for my hand. “Tesoro-”
“No, let me finish. Please.” I pulled my hand back. “You’re never here. And when you are here, you’re not here. You’re on your phone or your laptop or thinking about the next deal. When’s the last time you asked me about my day? When’s the last time we had dinner together that wasn’t interrupted?”
“The Hartwell deal is-”
“It’s always a deal, Dante. There’s always something.”
“This one’s different. You know how big this is. Once we close Hartwell, things will calm down. I promise.” He stood, came around the island, took my face in his hands. “After the deal, okay? We’ll talk. Really talk. I’ll take time off. We’ll go somewhere.”
“You said that about the last deal.”
“I know.”
“And the one before that.”
“I know.” He pressed his forehead to mine. “And I’m sorry. But I mean it this time. Just give me until Hartwell closes. After the deal, tesoro. I swear.”
His eyes were so sincere. His hands so warm on my face.
“Okay,” I said. “After the deal.”
I believed him.
***
“The reservation’s at eight. That new Italian place you wanted to try.”
Our anniversary. Six months ago. I was standing in the bathroom doorway in the red dress - the one I’d just bought, tags still on - watching Dante button his shirt.
“About that.” He didn’t look up. “I can’t make it tonight.”
“You can’t make it to our anniversary dinner.”
“The Hartwell team needs me. There’s a problem with the European subsidiary, and if I don’t-”
“Dante. It’s our anniversary.”
“I know. And I’m sorry.” He finally looked at me. His eyes skated over the dress without registering it. “Can we reschedule? Next week?”
“Sure.” My voice came out flat. Dead. “Next week.”
“You’re upset.”
“I’m fine.”
“Tesoro-”
“I said I’m fine.” I turned back into the bathroom. Started pulling pins from my hair. “Go save your deal.”
He hovered in the doorway for a moment. I watched his reflection in the mirror, waiting for him to say something - to really see the dress, to see me, to change his mind.
“I’ll make it up to you,” he said. “I promise.”
The door clicked shut behind him.
I took off the dress. Put it back in the closet with the tags still attached.
Next week never came.
***
The memory that haunts me most is smaller than the others.
Middle of the night. February, maybe. The bedroom was dark, and I couldn’t sleep, and I reached across the sheets to find him.
My hand found his back - warm, familiar. I curled against him, pressed my lips to his shoulder.
He shifted away.
“Long day, tesoro.”
Not “come here.” Not “I need you too.” Just his back turning, the sheets rustling, the distance between us growing by another inch.
He still said tesoro then. But it was starting to sound different. Less like sweetheart and more like sorry. Less like I love you and more like please stop asking for things I can’t give.
I lay there in the dark, staring at the ceiling, and thought: This is how marriages die. Not all at once. Inch by inch, night by night, until you can’t remember what it felt like to be touched.
After that, I stopped reaching.
***
The deal closed today.
I saw it on the financial news - MORETTI HOLDINGS CLOSES LANDMARK HARTWELL ACQUISITION - and something in my chest cracked open. Not hope, exactly. Something more desperate than that.
After the deal, he said. After the deal, we’ll talk.
The deal is done, Dante. Tonight, we finally talk.
The zipper sticks halfway up my back. There was a time I would have walked into the living room, asked him to zip me. He would have pressed a kiss to my spine, whispered something about skipping dinner, pulled me toward the bedroom.
That was a different marriage. A different life.
I contort my arm, get the zipper the rest of the way. Check my reflection.
The dress still fits. Somehow that surprises me.
On my way out, I grab a bottle from the wine fridge.
The Barolo from our honeymoon - that tiny vineyard outside Turin where Dante promised the owner he’d buy a case.
We carried it home and drank the first bottle on the grass outside our lake house, and I thought we’d drink the rest at every anniversary for the rest of our lives.
The case has been sitting untouched ever since. Waiting for occasions that never came.
Tonight’s an occasion. It has to be.
I text Sophia on my way to the elevator: Going to Dante’s office. Wish me luck.
Her response comes immediately: FINALLY. Go get your husband back.
After the deal, I think, clutching the wine bottle like a lifeline. He promised. After the deal.
The elevator doors open.
I step inside, heart in my throat.