When I’m done, Anthony looks more thoughtful than I’ve seen him in months.
“So?” I say. “What do you make of that, oh whisperer of the feminine?”
“Sounds to me like she’s afraid of repeating her first marriage. It can’t have been a particularly great one,” he says, and shakes his head. “I remember Percy from school.”
“You were in the same year, right?”
“Yeah. I always got the feeling his parents were riding him pretty hard. Can’t imagine they stopped, just because he grew up. Besides,” Anthony says, shrugging, “he always struck me as a man with an appetite for too much fun.”
I sigh. “So I made her feel like being with me would be like being with that fucking asshole again.”
“Maybe,” he says, “but I doubt it’s as clear-cut as that. She was hurt very deeply, and now she’s afraid of opening herself up to being hurt again. Finding out about your little dalliance with Beverly just dialed that fear up to a ten. Hell, I could probably have figured this out even pre-Summer!”
I raise an eyebrow, remembering the man he’d been, before he was open about his diagnosis and before he met his wife. “No, I really don’t think you could’ve.”
He waves a hand. “Regardless, the way forward for you is simple, my friend.”
“Simple?”
“Yes. You just have to make it crystal clear to her that you’re not expecting anything like her old marriage. That you understand her fears and promise to listen to them, and take them seriously. And that you’re not going to give up just because it gets hard.”
“Fuck,” I say. “You actually are an expert.”
He grins, brief and wide. “Yeah.”
“So how do I let her know that?”
“I don’t know. What do men usually do when they fuck things up? Pen a heartfelt letter, or write her name in the sky with a plane?”
“Two very similar options,” I say dryly.
“When I screwed up with Summer, I just went and talked to her. No writing required.”
“I’ve tried that,” I say.
“So try again,” he says. “You have the look of a man who’s pining.”
“I’m not pining.”
“Yes, you are, because I’ve seen the same look on my own face in the mirror.”
I take a deep breath. He’s right on all counts, and maybe a few more that he’s too tactful to mention.
“I think I’m going to move out of the hotel,” I say.
“What? Seriously?”
“Yes. Showing the place to Sophia made me think… it’s not really a home, is it? It’s a memorial, a museum, and it’s important. But the rooms here are the family’s. Not mine. For a long time that didn’t matter, but I think it does now. I think Iwantit to matter.”
Anthony’s mouth widens into a slow smile. “Yeah. That’s why I’ve always wanted to have a life outside of the hotel, too.”
“I know,” I say. “It’s something I’ve resented you for sometimes. For going down your own path, and leaving me alone on the one we were expected to walk.”
Anthony’s quiet. His hand rests on Abel’s fur, moving back and forth in a slow motion. “I knew you did,” he says. “Sometimes. But I also know you, and you would have taken my head off if I’d ever tried to challenge you for your position.”
I chuckle. “Yeah. Probably.”
“If there’s one thing you are,” he says, “it’s painfully, obnoxiously, single-mindedly persistent. Don’t stop being that now, when you need it the most.”