Chapter 3

On Friday evening, Adrian stood in the doorway of the closet, watching me change.

"It's Lily's birthday. The dean and the foundation people will all be there."

I didn't look up.

"And?"

"You're coming with me."

"Didn't you always say I couldn't follow your research?"

He paused.

"Don't dredge up the past."

I fastened my earring.

"Fine. I'll go."

The astronomy center held its donor dinner under the glass dome. Silver candlesticks ran down the long table, and a slow nebula turned across the ceiling. Everyone had a glass in hand and was talking about projects, funding, and the next observing window.

Lily sat at the head table in a dark blue gown, an antique star-shaped brooch pinned at her chest.

I recognized that brooch. When Adrian came back from London last month, he said there had been nothing worth buying in the antique shops. I had spent half a day hunting down a tie clip for him.

"Nora!" One of the faculty wives caught my arm, laughing. "You really should come more often. Adrian's letters to the foundation have gotten so lovely these last few years. Even the dean says he has a way with words."

I held my glass and smiled.

"He always has."

Lily looked over just then. She acted as if she hadn't heard, and stood up to hand Adrian a packet of antacids.

"Professor, don't drink on an empty stomach tonight. Last time at the summit station your stomach hurt so much you couldn't stand up, and you still said you were fine."

Adrian took it with the casual ease of an old routine between them.

"Got it."

Someone at the table laughed.

"Lily knows Professor Vale best."

"Obviously," another researcher put in. "That blizzard observing night last year, everyone was half frozen, and Lily was the only one who'd go into the control room. The professor kept a comm channel open just for her."

Lily looked down and smiled.

"I really was scared that night. The professor told me that as long as he was there, I didn't have to be."

The wine turned faintly sour in my glass. I thought about the night of my mother's surgery. I sat in the hospital corridor and called Adrian more than ten times in a row. In the end he sent one message.

"I'm training my students. Don't distract me with this."

So it wasn't that his attention couldn't be split. He had just never been willing to give any of it to me.

Lily turned to me, her voice gentle enough to pass for real concern.

"Nora, have you been too busy lately? The professor's stomach has been bothering him for ages. I'm the one who ends up worrying about him."

The table went quiet. Adrian did nothing to stop her.

I set down my glass.

"He isn't a child, and he isn't my job."

Lily went pale.

"That isn't what I meant—"

"Then you'd better stop deciding for me what this means."

I picked up my clutch and went around the long table toward the door. Adrian caught up with me in the hallway and lowered his voice. "What exactly are you trying to do? The dean is still in there."

I looked at him.

"Did you come after me because you're afraid I'm upset, or because you're afraid someone will see it?"

He didn't answer.

In that second I stopped wanting the answer.

At home I wiped the whiteboard on the refrigerator clean, all of it, his meetings and his flights and his medication times. I left one date on it.

Wednesday.