He flinches as if remembering the last seven years in one blink and corrects, “Matthew Clare. He’s the only actual technician we’ve got left here. Maybe he can help.”

“He was at Jo’s earlier,” I offer. Hugh looks blank. “Asking about her radio.”

My body reacts before my mind catches up. The radios are out. He was checking on them. It’s normal Matthew Clare behavior, and yet I feel like I’ve just painted a target on him.

I stand, sloughing off my worry. “I could go find him.”

“No.” Hugh gets up with a groan, then leans against his knees like he’s just run a marathon. “I will; you shouldn’t have to.”

I step forward for a cursory see-you-in-a-bit peck, but his hand slides to my waist, firm, and his kiss lingers longer than usual. He pulls away, watching me. He looks sharper now, less sweaty, more himself. I take in the parenthetical curve at the corner of his lips, the golden brightness of his eyes, and my heart hammers. Even after seven years, sometimes it just hits. He’s Hugh, and implausibly enough, he’s mine.

Nearly our anniversary now—we met and married a year apart, June 22. We tell people we happened upon each other at a bar on that ocean liner, but the truth is a little bit different. I remember standing with my hands pressed to the railing of a forward deck, wind whipping through my hair, staring back at the man who’d just said, “Don’t do it.” He was embarrassed, pretended it was a joke, but I saw the terror in his eyes. I took in his trembling hands, how they contrasted with his almost lazy, elegant posture, leaning against the railing in his tuxedo. He was handsome, his features blunt in the light from the upper decks, more of a charcoal sketch than an oil painting. There was something vaguely desperate about him. It took accepting his offer of a drink in one of the first-class lounges, seeing him lit in velvety red and gold, to soften that perception.

I hadn’t planned to meet anyone that night, least of all him.

I hadn’t dreamed I’d wind up so blessed.

My husband presses his mouth to my forehead, breathing out slowly, pulling me closer. My arms twine around his neck, eyes darting to the closed door. The kids are below, with Avery. Sally’s three stories down in the kitchen, meal planning. Hugh’s hips edge into mine, and I lift my chin to kiss him again.

His eyes are open, distant, fixed on the door like mine were but looking way past it. His body’s here. He isn’t.

“Sorry,” he says, leaning to kiss me again on the forehead, briskly—the usual goodbye. “I won’t be long.”

He practically flies through the door.