He selects his clothing and disappears back into the bathroom as I push away a stab of guilt. I am his wife, apparently, and this is his own bedroom. He shouldn’t feel forced to hide in the bathroom to get dressed. Yet I’m absurdly grateful that he did it.
I put down the letter and rise from the bed. I can’t stop staring at the collection of photographs on top of the dresser. My eyes are drawn like a magnet to the wedding photo. It’s right in the middle, after all.
I pick it up—it’s heavy. The frame is probably expensive, like our bed and our fancy toilet. Part of me is convinced this all might be some sort of crazy dream, but the weight of this photograph feels so real.
This is no dream.
I squint down at the photograph, studying it for traces that it might be a forgery. Harry would know if it was real or not. Of course, Harry is long gone if that letter is to be believed. So it’s up to me.
I look down at my image in the photo. The white dress I’m wearing is absolutely beautiful. It’s a chiffon dress with a double V neck and elaborate beading all over the neckline. It’s silky white and classy, just how I imagined my wedding dress. Like the frame, it appears expensive—how was I able to afford something like that? Is Graham rich too, in addition to being gorgeous?
I study my expression. I’m smiling at the camera, my dark hair swept back from my face. I look happy. And why shouldn’t I be? This is supposedly my wedding day.
But there’s something else there. I look happy, but there’s something off. Something in my eyes.
“Tess?”
Graham’s voice startles me—I hadn’t even heard him come out of the bathroom. The frame slips out of my fingers and crashes to the floor. The glass shatters at my feet.
“Sorry!” I step back, mortified. “I’m so sorry. I—”
“It’s okay.” Graham’s hand is on my arm, and his blue eyes meet mine. He’s fairer than any man I’ve ever dated before—that was never my type. But he obviously won me over. “I’ll clean it up.”
“I could—”
“Don’t worry about it.” Graham bends down and snatches the frame from the floor. The glass has cracked, but it hasn’t come loose from the frame. “There’s nothing to even clean up. It’s fine.” He places the cracked picture frame back on the dresser with the others—it seems oddly ominous now with the shattered glass obscuring my face, but Graham doesn’t seem disturbed by it. “How about this? You go take a shower and I’ll make some breakfast for us.”
“Okay…”
Graham has put on a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles and is dressed in a gray suit. The effect makes him look both devastatingly handsome and incredibly important. But I guess he’s not in a rush to go anywhere if he’s willing to make breakfast. It occurs to me he’s been juggling his work obligations and taking care of me. Again, I get that stab of guilt.
“Does the toilet work just like a normal toilet?” I ask. I don’t want to admit how intimidated I am by the appliances in our bathroom. I need an instruction book to relieve my bladder.
He nods eagerly. “It’s very easy to use. It has an automatic flush when you stand up. And it also has an LED nightlight and a seat warmer. It’s programmable, so if you wanted, we could make it open the lid when you approach. There’s also a tornado wash that self-cleans the bowl.”
I stare at him. “What are you—a toilet salesman?”
There’s a flash of something in his eyes, almost like irritation or anger. Of course, he has a right to be a little irritated if he has to repeat the same information to me every single morning. But it’s not like it’s my fault.
Just as quickly as it appeared, the flash vanishes from his eyes, and I’m not sure if I imagined it. He glances at the bathroom. “I know it’s all confusing. Do you need any help in there?”
My jaw tightens. Is this his smarmy way of getting to see me naked? I don’t think so. “I can manage.”
The tips of his ears color and he nods. “Okay then. I… I’ll go downstairs and make breakfast.”
I wait until Graham has left the room before I venture back into the bathroom. Now that I’m not so shaken by the situation, I can take a moment to look around the bathroom. It’s… well, it’s quite nice. Harry and I fantasized about what we would do to renovate the bathroom when we had enough time and money, and this is much nicer than what we had contemplated. It looks like we pulled up the floor tiles as well and the shower is all shiny and new.
I spy a bottle of soap on the sink counter, and it has the My Home Spa logo on it. In fact, a lot of products in this bathroom bear the logo of my business on them. It was an idea that Harry and I came up with together, back when we were in our tiny little apartment, and I was fantasizing about what it would be like to have a spa vacation but somehow do it in our own home. And Harry said, That’s a million-dollar business idea. It was his idea to…
But no. I need to stop thinking about Harry. I saw the note in my own handwriting. He’s not part of my life anymore, and apparently for good reason.
I just wish I knew what the reason was. What terrible thing did he do?
I can’t bear to look in the mirror again, so I strip off the silk bathrobe and my oversized T-shirt, then I step into the shower. I reach for the hot water and…
How the hell do you turn the shower on?
It doesn’t have a knob, like every other shower in the known universe. It has some sort of computerized control system. There’s a screen, which has the time and little animated graphics of raindrops. Then several buttons to the right, but no label saying what any of the buttons do! One has an up arrow, one has a down arrow, one has the number one on it…
Oh God, I really do need help to take a shower.
I punch a couple of the buttons, hoping something will happen. There is a disturbing whirring noise coming from the plumbing, then all of a sudden, spicules of ice-cold water rain down on me. I scream and back away, panicked.
What is wrong with this stupid shower? Why would I install something so ridiculous?