“Why are you doing this?” I waved my hand around the restaurant, sloshing champagne. “The extravagant hotel, the fancy restaurant. Family vacation. We’ve never done anything like this before.”

He didn’t answer right away, but twirled his own champagne flute between his fingers.

“Maybe we should’ve been doing this before,” he said at last. “Maybe you and I spend too much time surviving life, and not enough time enjoying it.”

Ree returned, clutching the waiter’s arm with one hand and the world’s largest bowl of gelato with the other. Apparently, picking one flavor had been too hard, so she had settled on three. The waiter gave us a wink, distributed three spoons, and quietly disappeared.

Jason and Ree went at it I just watched them, my stomach churning, feeling like a condemned woman stepping up to the chopping block and waiting for the ax to fall

Jason called for a cab to take us back to the hotel Ree had hit the point where the gelato sugar rush was colliding with the late hour to form one hypercranky child. I wasn’t moving so steadily on my feet by then. The three glasses of champagne had gone straight to my head.

I thought Jason seemed less than razor-sharp as he opened the cab door and attempted to load Ree in, but I couldn’t be sure. He was the most self-possessed man I’d ever met, and even two glasses of alcohol barely seemed to affect him.

We made it to the hotel, managed to find our room. I got Ree out of her fancy dress and into her Ariel nightie. A maid had magically transformed the sofa into a bed, topping it with thick blankets, four pillows, and two gold-foiled chocolates. Ree ate the chocolates when I went in search of her toothbrush, then tried to hide the wrappers by sticking them under the pillow. Her deception would’ve worked better if not for the smear of chocolate ringing her lips.

I herded her to the bathroom for face washing, tooth brushing, and hair combing. She squealed, whined, and complained for most of it. Then I corralled her back to her sleeping quarters, tucking her into the bed with Lil’ Bunny snug in her arms. Ree had packed twelve books. I read two of them, and her eyes were already heavy-lidded before I finished the last sentence.

I dimmed the desk lamp, then crept out of the room, closing the door to a small crack behind me. She didn’t complain, a sure sign of success.

In the master bedroom, I found Jason lounging on the bed. His shoes were off, his jacket tossed over a chair. He had been watching TV, but turned it off when I came in.

“How is she?” he asked.

“Tired.”

“She did very well tonight.”

“She did. Thank you.”

“Did you have a nice night?” he asked.