The Second Time Around

CHAPTER SEVEN: The First Dinner

The dinner that first night was held in a glass pavilion overlooking the valley. Round tables, white linens, wine glasses that probably cost more than a car payment.

The six families were seated at one long table, forced intimacy that immediately highlighted their differences.

Selene found herself next to Elena Westbrook, with Lily on her other side. Alexander sat across from her with Ethan beside him.

"Your family seems very close," Elena said, and Selene could hear the wistfulness in her voice.

"We are now," Selene said carefully. "It took almost losing each other to figure out how to be close."

"How did you almost lose each other?" Elena asked. "You've only been married what, a few years?"

"Eleven years. And almost losing each other is relative. You can be married and live in the same house and still lose the person you love. That was us."

Elena looked away, and Selene could see the pain flicker across her face.

"Can I ask you something?" Selene continued. "What made you fall in love with your husband in the first place?"

Elena's expression softened. "He used to write me poems. Every morning, I'd wake up and there would be a new poem on my pillow. About how I made him feel. About why he loved me. They were terrible poems, actually. Rhyming awkwardly. But they were so sincere. He'd pour everything into them."

"Did he stop?"

"Years ago. And I thought it was because he stopped loving me."

"Has he ever told you why he stopped?"

"No. We don't really talk about things like that."

Selene watched Marcus across the table, watched the way his eyes kept flickering to Elena, watched the way he looked at her like she was something precious that he'd let slip through his fingers.

He was still in love with her. He was just afraid to say it.

"You should ask him," Selene said quietly. "Tonight. Tonight, you should ask him why he stopped writing."

Elena looked at her like she was crazy. "I can't just—"

"Yes, you can. Because if you don't, you might run out of time. And then you'll spend the rest of your life wondering."

Across the table, Alexander was deep in conversation with Marcus about the tech industry.

"You seem to know what you're doing," Marcus was saying, "but you also seem completely out of place here. Why did you agree to come?"

"My wife asked me to."

"And you listen to your wife?"

"Now I do. It took me years to figure out that she was usually right about the important things."

Marcus nodded slowly. "I think I stopped listening to mine somewhere around year five."

"You can start listening again. It's not too late."

"Isn't it? We've been barely speaking for three years. Our kids don't even know what it feels like to have both parents in the same room."

"Mine didn't either," Alexander said quietly. "I worked too much. I was too focused on the empire. I missed their childhoods. But I'm trying to do better. And that's what matters. That you're willing to try."

Mrs. Tsai made a comment that nearly started a war.

She'd been drinking wine on an empty stomach, poor choice, and her filter had completely disappeared.

"Your family seems so perfect," she said to Selene, not unkindly, but with an edge. "How did you manage that? Especially with such a cold husband?"

The table went silent.

Selene felt Alexander go rigid beside her.

"He's not cold," Selene said, her voice carefully controlled. "He's afraid. There's a difference."

"Afraid of what?" Mrs. Tsai pressed. "Look at the man. He's got everything. Power, money, a beautiful wife. What does he have to be afraid of?"

"Of not being enough," Selene said flatly. "Of being abandoned. Of loving someone and having them leave him. So he built walls. Really big, really thick walls. And I spent years trying to tear them down because I needed him to show me love in ways I could understand. But the walls weren't the problem. My inability to see him through the walls, that was the problem."

She turned to Alexander. "I'm sorry it took me so long to actually see you."

"Selene—" he started, but she kept going.

"You show love in actions. In building things. In creating security for the people you care about. That's how you loved me. That's how you loved our children. I was just too busy looking for poetry to notice you were building cathedrals."

The table was completely silent now. Even Samantha looked slightly uncomfortable.

Mrs. Tsai's face flushed red. "I didn't mean—"

"I know you didn't," Selene said, not unkindly. "But my husband is a good man. And he deserves to be seen as such."

Alexander reached across the table and took Selene's hand.

Just that. Just holding her hand. But it was enough.