Palm Readings at Sunset

Maria sat on the bench, her hand pressed against Daniel's chest hair, listening to his heart. The rhythm was steady, unhurried — completely at odds with the life they'd unravelled over three whiskey-sodden nights in Naples.

"Your palm," he murmured, tracing the lines there. "You'll live to ninety."

"Palm readings from a corporate lawyer?" She laughed, pulling away. The Italian sunset burned orange across the skyline, the same fierce color as the bruises she'd stopped hiding.

"I noticed things in depositions. People's hands." Daniel sat up, reaching for his baseball cap — the Mets one he'd worn through every catastrophic meeting, every phone call from his ex-wife's lawyer, every moment he'd considered walking into the ocean. "Your lifeline's long. Your head line — that's the thinker's crease — it's fragmented. Means you overthink everything. Always have."

Maria lit a cigarette, watching the smoke curl toward the ceiling fan. "You don't know me. You know three days of me at my most pathetic."

"I know you cancelled your return flight twice. I know you ordered your steak blood-rare the first night and well-done the last. I know you keep checking your phone like you're waiting for something that's never going to happen."

He was right. She was waiting for Marcus to call. To say he'd made a mistake. That the promotion meant nothing without her. That the apartment felt empty without her collection of strange ceramic cats. But Marcus had stopped calling three weeks ago, right around the time his assistant started posting sunset photos from his balcony.

"My father taught me to read palms," Daniel continued, unexpectedly soft. "Before he died. Said it was about seeing patterns in chaos. Baseball stats, stock prices, creases in hands — same thing, really."

Maria crushed her cigarette. "And what do you see in mine now?"

"I see you're tired." Daniel stood, crossing to the balcony. The orange light caught the gray at his temples, made him look suddenly older than forty-two. "I see you're ready to stop waiting."

She joined him at the railing. Below, the city pulsed with evening traffic, scooters weaving through cobblestone streets, tourists clustering around fountains. It was beautiful. It was awful. It was exactly where she was.

"Cancel my flight again," she said, and when he turned, surprised, she touched his wrist. "Stay here with me. Neither of us has to be anywhere."

Daniel looked at his Mets cap, then at the darkening sky. "You sure about that? Your head line suggests you'll change your mind by morning."

"Then you'll just have to convince me again." Maria took his hand, palm to palm, and kissed the life line. "Starting now."