Chapter 5 #10
“You haven’t,” Adrian says with quiet certainty. “Clara mentioned the NICU evidence specifically. She said it establishes a clear pattern of behaviour that will be very relevant to custody discussions. The lack of doctor’s appointment attendance as well.”
The feeling that the worst moments of my life may help me out of this situation is a strange one.
“Thank you,” I say, the words feel odd in this instance.
Adrian nods once, his expression matter of fact. “Patience is still the strategy. But you’re in a good position, Elsie. Better than most in your situation.”
I nod, not quite trusting my voice, and Adrian gives my shoulder a brief, careful squeeze before turning back to the table where Luca is now dramatically reenacting Barry’s reorganization of the fiction section with three salt shakers and a packet of sugar.
At one point during the afternoon, I’m not even sure when, I realize that I’ve gone nearly forty minutes without thinking about Daniel.
Just forty straight minutes of being where I am, making coffee, talking to customers, watching Leo make Milo laugh with increasingly elaborate facial expressions when he gets out of school.
Forty minutes where my marriage isn’t the centre of my existence, where I’m not the woman whose husband betrayed her, but just Elsie, barista, business owner, friend, mother, person.
It doesn’t fix anything. It doesn’t make Daniel’s lies less painful or the divorce less complicated or the future less uncertain. But it helps.
Closing time arrives gradually, I start slowly cleaning and closing up until Luca announces to the stragglers that it’s time to go.
“Oh!” the woman says, reaching for her handbag. “Is it that time already?”
“I’m afraid so,” Luca says, already moving toward their table with a cloth in hand. “The witching hour approaches. When the last customer leaves, the espresso machine transforms into a pumpkin, and I turn back into a frog.”
“You’re already a frog,” I tell him, wiping down the counter. “Just one with an espresso machine and questionable taste in music.”
“Diversity in amphibian representation,” he says solemnly. “It’s very important.”
As the last customers finish their drinks and gather their belongings, some with reluctance, others with brisk efficiency, the café gradually empties.
Chairs go up on tables with soft thuds. Napkins and empty cups are cleared from surfaces still warm from human hands.
The coffee machine is switched off with a final, satisfied hiss, the sound cutting through the quiet, like a period at the end of a particularly long sentence.
Luca is the last to leave, his coat already on, his keys in hand, his movements slightly slower than usual, his phone in his hand, his expression carefully neutral.
“Are you sure you’re okay closing up?” Luca asks, already knowing the answer. “I can stay. Adrian doesn’t mind.”
“Go,” I tell him, already reaching for the broom. “I’ve got this. And you promised him dinner that wasn’t from the café, which seems fair with the number of hours you do here in my absence.”
“Alright,” Adrian says from the doorway, as if summoned by our conversation. “I have it in writing. ‘I, Luca Reyes, do solemnly swear to cook an actual meal that does not contain espresso in any form or poison my husband.’ Signed in blood. Or possibly red wine. The forensics were inconclusive.”
“I make excellent pasta,” Luca says, wounded. “And that one time with the salmon was not my fault. The recipe specifically said, ‘skin side down,’ which is obviously a translation error because who would voluntarily eat salmon skin? It’s like eating a scale-covered fish mermaid.”
“That’s not what a mermaid is,” I tell him.
“It’s exactly what a mermaid is,” he counters. “Half fish, half person. Very established in mythology. I will not be gaslit about mermaid physiology.”
Before I can respond, he crosses the room and kisses my cheek, a quick, casual gesture. “Text me,” he says, his voice deliberately light. “When you get home. So I know you’re not lying murdered in a ditch because you decided to take the scenic route again.”
“I’ll text,” I promise. “And I’m not taking the scenic route. I’m taking the route that doesn’t involve the roundabout where six roads meet at once with no clear right-of-way. It’s a safety issue.”
“Your inability to navigate a simple traffic circle is both charming and deeply concerning,” Luca says, already heading for the door. “We should discuss it at length. Possibly with maps. And those little toy cars they use to teach road rules.”
“I’m an excellent driver,” I call after him. “I just have a healthy respect for the inherent chaos of multiple roads converging at once with no clear rules.”
“That’s literally what a roundabout is for,” Adrian says, holding the door open. “Establishing clear rules for road convergence.”
“It’s a death trap with landscaping,” I tell him. “And I stand by that assessment.”
They leave together, Luca still talking, Adrian listening, and the café settles.
The floor is still slightly sticky near the counter where someone spilled a caramel latte.
The air smells like coffee grounds. The chairs sit upside-down on tables, their shadows stretching across the floor in the fading light.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, a message in the group chat, Harper’s name appearing next to a screenshot of a romance trope: “Enemies to Lovers BUT they’re actually just two people with terrible communication skills and one misunderstanding.
” Below it, Liv has sent three insulting reactions, an eye roll, and a vomiting face, followed by a single heart emoji that she will absolutely deny sending tomorrow.
I smile despite myself, tucking the phone back into my pocket without responding. Across the room, Maisie is asleep in her carrier. Milo, who spent twenty solid minutes screaming with focused determination, is now a small, boneless, deeply peaceful lump in his carrier.
I stand near the front door with my keys in my hand and don’t immediately leave. I should head home to the careful dance of normality that waits for me there.
But for just a moment, I stand perfectly still in the middle of the empty café and breathe. And as I do, as my lungs fill with air that’s so familiar, soaking in this moment of peace, of pride.
I lock the front door, turn off the last light, and stand in the dark for one more moment, keys in hand, babies sleeping, and head to my car. The night is cool against my face, the street quiet at this hour, the houses around me lit with a golden warmth that means people are home.
This single moment hits me as I sit in my car after strapping the twins in, before I start the engine, sitting in the dark. For a little while today, in the normalcy of Page & Grounds with people who love me as I am, I was myself again.