The curse of jet lag.

Frustrated, I turned my body away from him. The pictures would have to wait until morning.

I woke to the sound of the shower running and a narrow strip of daylight searing its way through the curtains and onto my face. The bathroom door stood slightly ajar, steam rushing out of it, and on the sofa, James had folded up his blanket and set it neatly beside the spare pillow.

I picked up my phone—fully charged—and resisted the urge to dive immediately into the photos. Instead, I pushed my face against the pillow, trying to ignore my full bladder, counting the minutes until James left the hotel so I could begin my day in peace.

At last, he walked out of the bathroom, wearing nothing but a beige towel around his waist. It was so normal, the sight of my husband half-naked, and yet something inside me grew tense. I wasn’t ready, not now or anytime soon, for “normal.” I turned my face away.

“Late dinner last night,” he said from across the room. “Anything good?”

I shook my head. “Just grabbed a sandwich, took a walk.” It wasn’t like me to tell little white lies, but I wasn’t about to tell him—or anyone—what I’d really done last night. Besides, he’d lied to me for months about something much worse.

Behind me, James let out a raspy cough. He walked over to the couch, leaned down and grabbed a box of tissues from the floor. I hadn’t seen them earlier, but he must have had them next to him all night. “Not feeling a hundred percent,” he said, putting the tissue against his mouth and coughing again. “Throat hurts, too. Dry air on the plane, I guess.” He opened his suitcase and pulled out a T-shirt and jeans, then dropped his towel to the floor as he began to dress.

I kept my eyes off his naked body by looking at the vase of flowers on the table near the door, a few of which had begun to wilt slightly. With my hands on top of the duvet, I noticed last night’s dirt under my fingernails, and I shoved my hands under the covers. “What’s your plan for the day, then?” I pleaded silently that he planned to explore the city or go to a museum or just...leave. I wanted nothing more than to be here alone with my phone, the Do Not Disturb sign hanging from the door.

“The Tower of London,” he said, threading his belt around his waist. The Tower of London. The ancient castle was one of the sites I’d been most excited about—it was the home of the Crown Jewels—and yet it now seemed a mere children’s museum compared to what I found last night hiding behind Bear Alley.