I brushed the hair from her face. She made a soft sound, curling deeper into the pillow.
"Too early," she mumbled.
"I know."
One eye cracked open, suspicious. "You're doing that thing again."
"What thing?"
"The thing where you watch me sleep like I'm going to disappear."
I didn't deny it. Three months, and some part of me still expected to wake up alone. To find out this was all some fever dream conjured by smoke and exhaustion.
"I'm not going anywhere," she said softly now. Her hand found mine on the pillow. "You know that, right?"
"I know." I lifted her hand, pressed a kiss to her knuckles, right below the ring. "Still getting used to it."
"We have time." She tugged me closer. "Plenty of time."
From the doorway, Watson announced himself with a yowl that echoed down the hallway.
Ava groaned into the pillow. "He has the worst timing."
"He hasconsistenttiming. Six-fifteen every morning. You could set a watch by him."
"I hate that you're right." She released my hand, making a shooing motion. "Go. Feed the beast. I need ten more minutes."
"Ten minutes. Then coffee."
"You're a good husband, Brian Torres."
The words hit me somewhere soft. Three months, hearing her sayhusbandstill got to me.
I dropped a kiss on her hair and went to negotiate with the cat, smiling.
The routine had shifted, but the structure was the same.
Coffee on the couch instead of the balcony. Watson weaved between our legs. The morning news murmured in the background.
I still drove Ava to work every morning—before my shift, after it, even on my days off. She'd protested at first, said she could take the subway. I kept showing up anyway.
My mother had taken Ava under her wing with the force of a woman who'd been waiting years for a daughter-in-law to feed. The cooking lessons had become a regular thing—Ava learning the recipes I'd grown up with, my mother beaming with pride every time something turned out edible.
Ava's cooking was still a work in progress. But she was getting better. And the fact that she tried, that she showed up in my mother's kitchen and let herself be taught—that meant more than any well-seasoned pernil ever could.
"Your father emailed me," I said.
"About what?"
"Investment portfolios. Diversification strategies. Something about index funds and risk."
"Do you understand any of that?"
"Not a word." I grinned. "But I read the whole thing anyway."
Charles Rothwell and I had found our own rhythm. He talked about money and markets; I nodded and asked questions that probably revealed my complete ignorance. But he seemed to appreciate that I listened. That I tried. Over time, the stiff formality had softened.
Every two weeks, we made the rounds. The Bronx one weekend, Manhattan the next. Two families that were nothing alike, slowly learning to become one.
