He stopped for a moment, not expecting to see me, and then grinned. “Yes.”
We ate breakfast there at the restaurant, not caring if we ran into our spouses. Which we did. I was taking a bite of my omelet when I saw them walking in. I kicked Harvey and pointed to them. They hadn’t seen us yet, but we sat there watching them. Greg and Natalie sat down and said nothing to each other. They ordered their food without consulting each other or discussing their order. Not one word. When the food arrived, they ate in silence. By then our own food was cold. Greg got up, having finished his meal, and then he saw us. He walked over to the table, my body tensing up.
“Shit,” I said under my breath before he reached us.
“Hi,” Greg said, and then he put both hands up in front of him as a sign of non-confrontation. “I just wanted to tell you I’m on a flight home in a couple of hours, and I’m on my way out.” He was looking at me, and I could tell he too had not slept. He was sad, and I almost reached out to hug him at that moment. I felt a kick from Harvey, and I knew that I’d been on the brink. It would have led to us talking, maybe me giving Greg another chance. I hoped not.
“OK,” I said, “I guess you’ll be hearing from my lawyer.” He stared at me for a few seconds and then walked away, his shoulders down from their usual erect nature. I felt my eyes stinging then, and I went outside, forgetting Harvey and the rest of my breakfast. This was hard, and it wasn’t getting any easier. I’d feel this way until the divorce was finalized, but I couldn’t do that from St. Thomas.
I was out there for a while when Harvey came to find me.
“Natalie’s going home too,” he said. “She tried to apologize, but I told her that apologies mean nothing to me in this situation. We should have separated a while ago, and she agreed. She said the reason she hadn’t said anything before is because she thought we could fix it with a baby. Do you know how fucked up that is? I told her that, and she started crying. Take your tears elsewhere, I said, because you created this whole mess.”
“I don’t even recognize her anymore. I can’t believe how deceived we’ve been by them.”
“The good news is that they’re leaving. St. Thomas will be ours soon, and we won’t have to worry about running into them.”
“That’s true,” I said, trying to break out of the sadness threatening to overcome me again.
“That means we’re taking this vacation back. We had it, right? We were having fun, and then last night and this morning we got off track, but that’s it. They’re gone, and we can do this.” I loved his pep talk, and honestly, it was working— more so because he did that staring thing again, and I was watching his hazel eyes sparkle in the sun.
“OK!” I said clapping my hands, getting into the spirit. “What are we doing? Skydiving? Bungee jumping?” Obviously, I wouldn’t do either, but I was trying to prepare myself for whatever was coming.
He lifted an eyebrow and gave me a half smile. “I was thinking more like chilling on a party boat or something.” I laughed and nodded.
