16. Izzy
— ? —
Izzy
The letter is soft at the folds from how many times I’ve opened it.
I stand on the inn’s porch with it in my jacket pocket and my knuckles an inch from the blue door, and my heart is making a racket, and I knock before the smarter parts of me can call a vote.
Footsteps. The door opens.
Wilson stands there in a flannel shirt with the sleeves shoved up, a pen behind his ear, yesterday’s stubble going on two days. His whole face does the arithmetic, me, here, at his door, and lands somewhere between hope and bracing for a blow.
“Izzy.” He grips the doorframe. “Hi.”
“You gave up the Burnham deal.” I pull the letter out and hold it between us, evidence and white flag at once. “It’s everywhere. The board, the stock, all of it.”
“Yes. Every piece of it.”
“Your company is going to suffer.”
“Probably, yes.” He says it the way other men say the weather.
“Why?” My voice cracks on the one syllable, and I let it. “The empire, Wilson. The thing you fed our whole marriage into. Why?”
He doesn’t reach for a speech. He looks at me straight, pen behind his ear, harbor wind moving past us both.
“Because the version of me that needed that deal is the version that lost you.” He says it plain. “I’m not feeding him anymore.”
The wind fills the silence. Down the hill a halyard clinks against a mast, patient as a clock.
He means it. It’s been weeks of him meaning things, and I keep waiting for the meaning to run out, and it doesn’t run out.
“Do you want to get dinner tonight?” It comes out before I’ve finished deciding to say it and my heart is suddenly pounding so hard I can feel it in my throat. “Like, out somewhere. Together.”
His whole face changes. For a second he just stares at me like I spoke a language he doesn’t know, and then this light comes into his eyes and he’s trying so hard to play it cool but he’s failing miserably.
“Yes.” His voice comes out a little too loud and he clears his throat. “I mean, yeah. Yes. Dinner. Tonight. That sounds… yes.”
“You don’t even know what kind of dinner.” I can feel the smile tugging at my mouth and I don’t fight it. “Could be anywhere. Could be terrible.”
“I don’t care.” He’s grinning now and trying to stop and he can’t. “You could tell me we’re eating gas station sushi in a parking lot and I’d already be in the car.”
“It’s a date.” I say it and I sound shy saying it, which is stupid because I’ve been married to this man for seven years, but my cheeks are getting warm and I can’t look directly at him. “Like a first date. We pretend we’re strangers who just met on this island.”
“A first date.” He repeats it slowly like he’s savoring the words. “With my wife. Who is giving me a second chance. To take her on a first date.”
“You’re making it weird.”
“Can you blame me? This is the best thing that’s happened to me in months.
” He’s still grinning, this big stupid grin that makes him look ten years younger, and my stomach is doing flips like I’m seventeen again.
“What time? Actually, doesn’t matter. I’ll be ready whenever.
I’ll be ready now. Do you want to go now? We could go now.”
“Wilson. Breathe.”
“Right. Too eager. Playing it cool.” He takes a breath and nods seriously but his eyes are dancing. “What time would the lady prefer?”
“Seven o’clock.”
“Seven it is.” He nods again. “Great. Perfect. I’ll be there at seven. Or six thirty. Or whenever you want. I’m flexible. I’m incredibly flexible. I have nowhere else to be for the rest of my life.”
I’m laughing now, actually laughing, and it bubbles up from somewhere I forgot existed. “You’re a mess.”
“I’m your mess.” He says it soft and the joke falls away for just a second and we’re just looking at each other and my heart does a dangerous thing. “If you still want me.”
“Seven o’clock, Wilson.” I turn down the steps because I need to not be looking at his face right now or I’m going to do a stupid thing like cry or kiss him. “Don’t be late.”
“I won’t be.” I can hear the smile in his voice. “I’m never going to be late for you again.”
I’m halfway down the drive before I let myself smile for real, this big dumb smile I can’t control, and I feel like I’m floating, and I don’t look back because if I do I’ll see him still standing in that doorway watching me go and I’ll turn around and run right back to him.
I’m not ready for that yet.
But God, I’m getting closer.
***
Il Faro is six tables and a chalkboard menu, tucked behind the fish market where the summer people never think to look.
I picked it because nobody here knows us.
I picked it because it’s Italian, and I’m apparently sentimental about carbs, and if he notices what that rhymes with, a checked tablecloth a lifetime ago, a boy who talked with his hands about a future he hadn’t built yet, he has the grace not to say it out loud.
He notices. I can tell he notices. His eyes go over the candle in the wine bottle and the tomato-sauce smell and come back to me full of the same boy.
“So.” He unrolls his napkin with ceremony. “Come here often?”
“First time.” I take the game and run with it. “I’m told the owner’s a tyrant about the special. What do you do, stranger?”
“I’m between empires.” He fills my water glass before his own. “You?”
“I paint.” Saying it out loud, present tense, to his face, my chest does a slow warm thing I refuse to interrogate. “Women at windows, mostly. I’m working up to doors.”
“I’d like to see them someday.” He says it carefully, no push in it, an open palm of a sentence. “When the artist does showings.”
The food comes and the game keeps going, and then somewhere in the middle it stops being a game.
He asks what my mornings look like and listens to the whole answer. Not the polite nodding he used to do while his mind was somewhere else. Actually listens.
He asks about Gran’s percolator and the trick to the jewelry box latch and whether the fence held through the last storm.
Small things.
Things he never used to ask about, because there was always a bigger fire demanding his attention.
And he doesn’t check anything or glance anywhere. He doesn’t reach for his pocket like he used to.
Because there’s no phone on this table at all.
I checked when we sat down. I’ve been checking all night.
It’s in his coat. His coat is on the hook by the door, across the room, and he hasn’t thought about it once.
I spent years fighting that phone for his attention and losing. Tonight he left it in his coat across the room without me saying a word.
The owner comes over with the wine himself, a big man in a sauce-stained apron, and he gets one look at Wilson’s face and stops dead.
“Hang on.” He points the bottle at us, delighted.
“You’re that couple. From the news. With all the drama and the receipts and that thing where you bought a ladder from the hardware store.
” He waves the bottle at the general catastrophe of us.
“My wife made me watch the whole story from start to finish. Twice.”
“Oh no.” I put my face in my hand.
“Oh YES.” He’s already pouring. “On the house, all of it. My wife said, Sal, if you ever mess up that bad, you better learn to make it right like that guy did.” He claps Wilson on the shoulder and staggers him. “You fought for her, my friend. You really fought for her. My wife cried.”
“Well, I made a lot of mistakes.” Wilson’s ears have gone red. “But I’m learning how to make them right.”
“You hear that? He’s learning!” Sal throws his hands up and starts walking away, talking loud enough for every table to hear. “Pete says he showed up at the hardware store like a lost puppy. Didn’t know how to use a caulk gun. Asked if it would hurt him!”
The laugh gets loose, and Wilson’s comes at the same moment, and then we’re both gone.
Really laughing, until neither of us can catch our breath.
His head tips back and my eyes are streaming and we’re both collapsing over this checked tablecloth while six tables of islanders pretend not to grin at us.
I can’t remember the last time we laughed at the same thing at the same time. It’s been years, maybe.
And now we’re both sitting here with tears in our eyes over a man in a sauce-stained apron, and I don’t want it to stop.
When the check comes, Sal shoves it back in his apron before Wilson can even reach for it.
“I already told you, it’s on the house.” He crosses his arms over his chest. “My wife finds out I charged the ladder guy and she’ll have my head.”
“Sal, come on.” Wilson pulls out his wallet anyway and flips it open. “At least let me cover the wine.”
“Not a chance.” Sal puts his hand over the wallet and pushes it back toward Wilson’s chest. “Put that away before you embarrass yourself.”
Wilson sighs and tucks his wallet back into his jacket, and I catch the look on his face, the one that says this isn’t over. We thank Sal and his wife about four times each, accept two more hugs than strictly necessary, and finally make it out the door.
We’re maybe half a block down the street when I hear someone running behind us.
“Hey! Hey, no no no, get back here!”
Sal is jogging toward us with his apron flapping and a fistful of bills. He bends over to catch his breath when he reaches us, one hand on his knee.
“What the hell is this?” He straightens up and waves a folded stack of bills at Wilson. “I found this under your plate. I can’t even count it all.” He fans the bills out and stares at them. “This is like, this is rent money. This is multiple months of rent money.”
“That’s your tip.” Wilson says it like he’s commenting on the weather and puts his hands in his pockets.
“This is not a tip, this is insane.” Sal clutches the money to his chest and shakes his head. “I can’t take this.”
“You wouldn’t let me pay for dinner, so I had to get creative.” Wilson shrugs, his shoulders loose and easy. “Just say thank you and let me have this one.”
Sal looks at him, then at me, then back at him. He points at me with the hand holding the cash.
“Does she know you do stuff like this?”
“I’m standing right here,” I say, and I cross my arms.
“Does she let you do this?”
“I mean, I would have left the same amount.” I shrug. “He just got there first.”
“You two are both crazy.” Sal shakes his head, but he’s grinning. “Perfect for each other.”
“That’s what I keep telling her,” Wilson says, and he nudges my shoulder with his.
Sal stares at us for a second and then starts laughing, this big booming laugh that echoes off the storefronts. He laughs until he’s wiping his eyes with the corner of his apron.
“You two are gonna be okay.” He stuffs the money in his apron pocket and points at Wilson. “But next time you come in here, and there better be a next time, you’re washing dishes. I don’t care how rich you are. You’re on dish duty.”
“Deal.” Wilson reaches out and shakes Sal’s hand. “Dish duty it is.”
Sal pulls us both into another hug, one arm around each of us, and squeezes hard enough that I lose my breath for a second. Then he lets go and heads back toward the restaurant, still chuckling to himself.
The night outside is clear and cold off the harbor.
Wilson walks me toward the Jeep at exactly my pace, hands in his pockets, careful as a man who’s terrified of spooking me. I can feel him stealing glances but he doesn’t push. He just walks beside me and lets the quiet be okay.
Under the streetlight by the fish market, I stop.
He stops too, instantly, turned toward me, waiting.
The light comes down yellow between us and the cold makes his breath visible. Quick and shallow. Giving him away.
“Tonight was really nice.” I say it softly, looking up at him. “I had a good time. I forgot what that felt like, actually. Laughing with you like that.”
His face softens and I can see him start to hope.
“But I’m still angry.” I watch the hope flicker. “I need you to know that. It’s still there underneath everything. One good dinner doesn’t just erase years of feeling invisible, you know?”
“I know.” He nods slowly. “I didn’t expect it to.”
“This doesn’t mean everything is okay.” My voice wavers but I keep going. “It doesn’t mean I’m coming home tomorrow or that the divorce papers are gone or that we’re suddenly fine.”
“I know that too.”
He doesn’t move toward me. His hands stay in his pockets and his eyes stay on mine and he just waits. The way he’s been learning to wait. The way that still feels so new it makes my chest ache.
“But I miss you.” It comes out cracked wide open and I don’t try to hide it. “I’ve missed you for years, Wilson. Even when you were right there next to me, I missed you. And tonight you were finally here. Really here. And I don’t know what to do with that.”
“Izzy, wait…” He clears his throat and it doesn’t help.
“I miss my best friend.” I have to stop and breathe. “I miss the guy who used to make me laugh until I couldn’t breathe. The one who knew me better than anyone. I thought he was gone for good, but he’s standing right here under this streetlight, and I keep having to remind myself it’s real.”
“It’s real.” He says it soft. “I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Say my name.” I don’t know why I need it but I do. “Please.”
“Izzy.” He whispers it like it’s the only word he knows. “My Izzy.”
I reach out and take his hand.
This time it isn’t an accident. I didn’t stumble and the wind didn’t push me into him. I choose it. I reach out and lace my fingers through his and we both watch me do it.
His hand closes around mine slowly at first, like he’s afraid I’ll change my mind. And then his grip goes tight and sure and his breath comes out in one long shaky cloud.
He looks down at our hands under the streetlight, and his face breaks my heart and puts it back together at the same time.
“Hi, Izzy.” He whispers it, looking at our hands, then up at me.
“Hi, stranger.” I squeeze his fingers.
We stand there in the cold outside a fish market, holding hands like teenagers on a first date, and neither of us tries to make it more than it is. And neither of us lets go.