Dinner began the way Amara hoped it would; without strain, without the faint crackle of tension she'd felt all afternoon. The table glowed with candlelight, their flames steady in the soft draft from the half-open window. Outside, the clouds pressed low and heavy, but inside the kitchen everything was warm and golden.
She set down the platter of grilled salmon, steam rising in fragrant curls. Buttered potatoes gleamed beside a bowl of sautéed spinach, the rosemary she'd tucked into the napkins still giving off its gentle scent.
Elijah reached for the wine bottle, pouring with a surgeon's precision. "Not bad for a Monday," he said, settling into his chair. "The emergency wasn't really an emergency after all. A gallbladder scare that turned out to be indigestion. The resident on call kept calling the peritoneum the 'peritown-ee-um.' Drove the whole team crazy."
Amara smiled, spearing a potato. "Peritown-ee-um?," she repeated, drawing out the vowels until it sounded like the name of a second-rate amusement park. "Did anyone correct him?"
"Eventually," Elijah said, his green-gray eyes flashing with amusement. "But not before he gave a five-minute speech about how he'd 'never forget his first peritown-ee-um case.'"
She laughed, the sound rising light and easy. "You should've recorded it. Could have been the next viral clip."
He grinned. "And risk HIPAA? No thanks."
They ate, the quiet rhythm of fork and knife punctuating the low hum of the ceiling fan. Candlelight pooled across the table, warm but not quite soft enough to hide the careful way each of them measured a glance.
Amara set her glass down and cleared her throat. "You'll find this hilarious," she said, the corner of her mouth twitching. "A manuscript landed in my inbox this morning three hundred pages, every single word in lowercase. Even the author's name. It's like they've declared war on the shift key."
Elijah looked up from his salmon, a small smile flickering. "That takes commitment."
"Right?," she said, tilting her head. "But wait, there's more. One of the lines actually reads, he kissed her with the passion of a thousand cabbages."
Elijah's fork paused mid-air. "Cabbages?"
"I had to read it three times," Amara said, laughing under her breath. "A thousand cabbages. As if one cabbage wasn't quite enough to convey… whatever that's supposed to convey."
He gave a short, surprised laugh that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Maybe the author really likes coleslaw."
"Or maybe it's performance art," she said, nudging a potato across her plate with the edge of her fork. "Why settle for roses when you can have a whole field of cabbages?"
He smiled again, but it felt thin, the kind of laugh meant to keep the air moving. He sipped his wine, gaze drifting briefly toward the window where the curtains stirred. "Still," he said after a beat, "there's something admirable about that level of… conviction."
"Or delusion," she replied lightly, though the word hung between them longer than she intended.
The room settled back into its quiet cadence: the soft clink of cutlery, the muffled wind beyond the glass. Their conversation stumbled forward in small steps, like dancers who couldn't quite find the same rhythm.
For a while the evening felt easy, the air light, the warmth between them almost effortless. Candlelight softened every edge: the faint clink of utensils, the muted sigh of the wind beyond the glass. If someone had stepped in then, they might have believed this was a house untouched by strain.
But under the surface, the silence carried its own weight. They did not speak of yesterday, of Oakmere Lane, of the strange argument that had flared and then vanished like a dream. Those things hovered like dust motes just beyond the circle of candlelight.
Instead there was this: the slow dance of shared glances across the table, the brush of knees beneath it, the sound of their own breathing threaded through Nina Simone's fading record. Each gesture felt deliberate, like two people following a script they'd written long ago.
When the plates were cleared, Amara poured the last of the wine. They carried their glasses into the living room, the storm outside deepening to a low growl. The curtains stirred with each passing gust.
"Old movie or new?" Elijah asked, lowering himself onto the couch.
"Old," she said, tucking her legs beneath her. "Something with grainy film and too many shadows."
He chose a black-and-white classic, the kind they'd watched in the early years of their marriage when staying in on a weeknight had felt like rebellion. As the opening credits flickered, he rested his hand on her thigh, fingers warm through the fabric of her dress. She leaned against his shoulder, the weight of him familiar and almost soothing.
The movie played on in silvery light. Dialogue murmured across the room, the scratch of old audio blending with the rising wind. Outside, branches scraped the siding, a slow, deliberate sound that belonged to the gathering storm.
Amara sipped the last of her wine, letting the tartness linger on her tongue. She could feel Elijah's steady breathing beneath her cheek, the subtle shift of muscle each time he moved. For a while she let herself believe that the day's odd edges had dissolved into this quiet night.
The film ended. They spoke little as they rinsed the glasses and turned off the lamps. The house exhaled into darkness, the storm pressing closer.
Later, when Elijah's breathing deepened into the soft rhythm of sleep, Amara lay awake beside him. The ceiling fan turned slow, deliberate circles, its blades catching the faint glow of the streetlight. Shadows swayed across the walls like muted waves.
She should have felt content, she told herself that she did. The evening had been lovely, even tender. Yet the happiness sat inside her like a held breath, a fragile bubble of air beneath heavy water. Beautiful, yes, but breakable.
Her mind wandered back to the flicker she'd seen in his eyes at dinner, the half-second pause when she'd mentioned the lowercase manuscript, as if he'd been somewhere else entirely. Perhaps she imagined it. Perhaps not. The thought lingered like a chill draft under the door.
Beside her, Elijah shifted in his sleep. His face, softened by darkness, looked younger, the sharpness of the day eased away. She studied the slope of his nose, the faint stubble along his jaw, the lashes that brushed his cheeks. Peaceful. Safe.
She reached out, letting her fingers trace the familiar line of his jaw, the warmth of his skin beneath her touch. For a moment she could almost believe that the world outside, the creak of empty streets, the unsettling silence of the house did not exist.
"We're okay," she whispered, the words barely audible over the ceiling fan's slow churn. "We're okay."
The sound dissolved into the darkness, a fragile assurance offered to no one but herself. And for a heartbeat, she almost believed it.