DAY 15. AT SEA. AFTERNOON
Later that afternoon, SuTseng sat in the card room flicking through a magazine. She was alone there except for a teenage couple by the opposite window playing chess, both of them silent, staring at the board. The room was stuffy. In fact, she thought, the entire ship had a close, unventilated atmosphere. She was restless, agitated, and confused. When the cruise was over she had to face the Inquiry, and she should be focused on that. She hadn’t come on this voyage to find romance, and she was almost angry that it had found her. I shouldn’t even like him, she told herself, remembering what Martin had revealed about why he left his marriage. I should hate him and all the boy-men who haven’t learned to be responsible adults. But she couldn’t hate him. Indeed, she was
