Do I Know You?(84)

When we take several turns I know I recognize, confusion settles over me. “Eliza, I checked out of my room.”

She doesn’t slow down. “I know,” she says.

Undeniably curious, I keep following her. In the quiet of the evening, the trees feel like they’re welcoming me back home, their limbs motionless while we continue down the gravel pathway. It’s jarring, returning to this private world I thought I’d left for good. My mind can’t decide whether I’m stealing in uninvited or whether I’m right where I’m supposed to be. Maybe it’s both.

When Eliza stops outside my old room, I raise my eyebrows in inquiry.

She only grins. Then she produces a keycard, which she uses to click open the door.

I watch in bewilderment. “How . . .”

“The suite happened to be vacant for the night,” she replies with coy innocence. “So I checked in.”

She enters, the lights turning on gradually with the unlocked door. I cross the threshold and feel fully like I’m walking into a dream. When I take in the room, my questions disappear.

It’s been prepared exactly the way we wanted to avoid when we first checked in. Every detail is impossibly, perfectly in place. Candles line the hallway leading to the bed, where rose petals spell out “Mr. and Mrs.” On one nightstand is a sweating champagne bottle and a pair of crystal-clear glasses. It’s romance epitomized, and it makes my heart pound with joy struggling under so much uncertainty.

I turn to Eliza, who looks nervous, watching my reaction closely. She’s a good enough actress to hide her nerves if she wanted to. That she didn’t is unfairly endearing.

“I don’t want to drive home tonight,” she explains. “I don’t want to give up. Instead . . .”

She pauses. Her eyes, full of daring conviction, find mine.

“I want to renew our vows,” she says.

I blink. While I’m finding nothing to say—not yet—excitement and hesitation share my speechlessness uneasily. Eliza steps forward, her hand taking mine. Instinctively I interlock my fingers with hers, the dance we’ve done hundreds, even thousands of times.

“It’s been five years since we did this, and I think it’s clear we’ve changed,” she goes on. “We’re not the same couple we were when we stood before all our friends and family and promised to love each other through everything. I think we need to update those promises. We need to make them match the people we are now.”

I want so badly to say yes. To go with empty confidence into the plan she’s proposing—to never look down from this heartrending height.

But what she’s saying doesn’t undo my doubts. I can’t ignore them, even if I wish I could.

“Eliza, I—I told you what I needed from you,” I get out.

“I know. I know—” Her words pick up speed. “You were right. The game we were playing did bring us closer, but it let me hide from being myself, too. Which I do too often. It’s . . . something I have trouble with.” She sighs, half frustration, half discomfort from this confession. Sympathy flickers in me. “I’m afraid of being rejected by the ones I love,” she goes on. “You, Michelle—it was the same thing. I thought I was protecting myself from you, and I couldn’t see how it was hurting us. But I’m fighting it now. I called Michelle, and I told her everything.”

My surprise rushes blood to my face. The room comes into sharper focus. Eliza comes into sharper focus. I see she’s still wearing her rings around her neck. “What happened?” I ask.

She smiles bashfully. “I’m hoping you’ll be my date to her wedding.”

The news fills me with instant, instinctive happiness—not only from Eliza reconciling with her sister, but because she’s telling me. It is what I said I needed from her, or some small beginning of it.

But it only makes me feel more pulled in opposite directions. I don’t know how to respond to Eliza, not when my mind and heart still feel out of sync. Surrounded by rose petals, with champagne on the nightstand, I want so desperately to give in to the romance she’s put on, the promises she’s inscribed everywhere in this room. I want to trust she’s heading to where I’m waiting.

Eliza’s intensity softens. “I won’t keep shutting you out, Graham. I promise. We have to talk about the hard stuff,” she says. “Starting right now.”

Just like it came into her features, the imploring in her eyes is suddenly gone. She straightens up, looking me squarely in the face. In her moment’s pause—with her chin up, her perfect lips set, her spun-gold hair curling over one shoulder of her ivory dress—I have the chance to think to myself, What a profoundly gorgeous woman I married.

“I vow”—she starts—“to open the door to you. To tell you when I’m upset, when I need something. To let this be a partnership not just in fun, but in everything.”

She pauses like she’s choosing her words. I wait.

“Which includes us,” she continues. “Part of sharing even the hard stuff is letting you know what I need—trusting that you want to know and won’t reject me for it. So,” she says, “here it goes.”

I start smiling with her. The quiet wonder of her words begins to settle over me, too. What she’s saying isn’t the only surprise. What’s also surprising is that she’s saying it herself. She’s not hiding in character. She’s Eliza, Eliza Cutler.