Last Call for Second Chances

The bartender set down the old-fashioned with an orange twist curled like a question mark. Eve stared at it, the citrus oils catching the dim light, tiny prisms of amber against the mahogany. She was forty-three, seated in a hotel bar three thousand miles from home, waiting for a man who might not come.

Her palm still bore the indentation of her wedding ring, removed three weeks ago in a hospital waiting room while her husband explained—without tears—that he'd met someone else. Three days ago, her mother had pressed Eve's hand between her own rheumatic fingers, tracing the lifeline with a thumb that shook. "You've got a long road ahead, baby," she'd said, reading nothing but love in the creases.

Now, at the window table, Marcus appeared through the glass doors, rain beading on his shoulders like mercury on skin. He was her boss for seven years, her friend for three, something unspoken for two. The timing was atrocious. The possibility was terrifying.

He sat opposite her. His eyes found hers, stripped raw by the fluorescent convention center lights where they'd both spent the day pitching to investors who spoke of bull markets and bear instincts, who'd nodded at their presentation but looked at each other with something like pity.

"My flight's at six," Marcus said.

"Mine's at seven." Eve's throat tightened. "This weekend—it was the best thing that's happened to me in—"

"In years." He reached across the table. "For me too."

His palm covered hers, warm and solid. The bartender passed with a tray of drinks, his back to them, giving them the illusion of privacy. Outside, the rain intensified, washing the parking lot into gray abstraction.

"I could change my ticket," Marcus said.

The offer hung between them, heavier than the thirteen years of her marriage, heavier than the mortgage she'd signed alone, heavier than the way her daughters had looked at her when she told them their father was moving out.

"No," Eve heard herself say. "Not yet."

Marcus nodded. He didn't withdraw his hand.

"But soon?" he asked.

"Soon." She squeezed his fingers. "Promise me soon."

The orange twist had begun to brown at the edges. Somewhere in the distance, a passenger plane cut through the clouds, carrying someone toward something, or away from everything. Eve finished her drink in one swallow, the burn sharp and necessary, the aftertaste sweet and strange.