24. Neil
— ? —
Neil
The Amalfi coast at sunset looked like a painting.
I’d rented a restaurant. Just the terrace, just for us. Had the chef flown in from Rome, the one who’d cooked our honeymoon dinner eight years ago. I’d set the table myself, which is why the napkins were uneven and the candles were slightly crooked.
Anika hadn’t said anything when we arrived. Just stood at the edge of the terrace, looking out at the water, her face unreadable.
“It’s the same menu,” I said. “From our honeymoon. The chef remembered.”
“You tracked down the chef?”
“He was surprisingly easy to find. He has an Instagram. Didn’t know he was famous.”
She laughed, but there was something fragile in it. “Neil…”
“I know I missed our actual anniversary. I know I can’t get that night back. But I thought maybe I could give you a different version of it. A better one.”
She turned to look at me. Her eyes were wet.
“The table is crooked,” she said.
“Sorry. I’m not good at table setting.”
“And the napkins are uneven.”
“Also aware.”
“It’s perfect.”
We sat and ate. The food was exactly as I remembered, the flavors taking me back to a time when everything had felt possible. When I’d looked at her across a table and known, with absolute certainty, that I was the luckiest man alive.
I’d forgotten that certainty somewhere along the way. Let it get buried under spreadsheets and deals and the constant pursuit of more.
I wasn’t going to forget it again.
After dinner, I pulled out the gift.
It was wrapped badly. The paper was wrinkled, the tape showing. I’d done it myself, refusing to let anyone else touch it.
“What is this?” Anika asked.
“Open it.”
She did. Carefully, like she was afraid of what she might find.
Inside was a book. Old, leather-bound, the pages yellowed with age.
“Neruda,” she said softly. “Twenty Love Poems.”
“First edition. 1924.”
She looked up at me. “This is…”
“The book you were reading when we first had a date. It got soaked by rain. You told me later it was ruined.”
Her breath caught. “You remember that?”
“I remember everything about that day. Including how upset you were about that book.” I reached across the table, took her hand. “I’ve been looking for a first edition for three years. Finally found it in an estate sale in Argentina.”
“Three years?”
“I was going to give it to you for our anniversary. Then I missed our anniversary.”
She was crying now. Not trying to hide it. Just letting the tears fall while she held the book like it was something precious.
“Neil…”
“I know I can’t make up for all the years I wasn’t paying attention. I know a book doesn’t fix the dinners I missed or the birthdays I forgot or the nights you spent alone while I was at the office. But I’m trying. I’m going to keep trying, every day, for the rest of my life.”
She didn’t say anything. Just held the book and cried.
I came around the table. Knelt beside her chair. Took her face in my hands.
“I’m going to keep showing up,” I said. “Even when it’s hard. Even when I’m scared. Even when I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m going to be here.”
She was quiet for a long moment. I could feel my heart pounding, could feel the fear rising in my chest. What if it wasn’t enough? What if none of it was enough to undo the damage I’d done?
Then she smiled. Small and trembling and absolutely beautiful.
“I love you,” she said. “I never stopped. I just forgot why.”
I kissed her. Tasted salt from her tears and champagne from dinner and something else, something that felt like hope.
“I love you too,” I said against her lips. “I always have. I just forgot how to show it.”