Chapter 24: The Anniversary Dinner

A year later, on the same date, I took the elevator up to the top floor of the hotel at five minutes to eight.

I wore the green dress.

The ring was on my right hand, where I had put it myself in March.

The paper tag was long gone.

Hugh stood at the host stand in his dark jacket, writing nothing on a card.

He looked up, and he stopped.

It still happened every time, and I hoped it always would.

"Good evening," he said. "Do you have a reservation?"

"Under Lydia."

"Just Lydia."

"I dropped the rest in the spring."

"I'll walk you."

"You don't have to."

"I know," he said, and he held out his arm, and this time I took it.

The restaurant was full.

At a long table by the kitchen sat the six from the charter company.

Hugh had hired all of them back in the summer, to run the new dockside kitchen on the lake.

The dock manager's wife lifted a glass to me as we passed.

The older deckhand had a boat slip again, and he told everyone who asked.

I nodded to each of them.

At the window table, there was one candle lit, and two places set.

There was no fifth place.

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