Not just throwing some cheese on a plate, but actually arranging things—fanning out the salami, clustering the olives, finding the right spot for each cracker. He'd stopped at the gourmet shop in town that afternoon and come back with three kinds of cheese, two salamis, and a jar of honey that cost more than it should have.
Meredith leaned against the counter, watching him work. He'd driven four hours to surprise her, rearranged his whole schedule because he missed her. Because he wanted to be here.
So why did she feel like something was closing in?
"Fig spread or no fig spread?" He held up a small jar.
"Fig spread. Always fig spread."
"That's my girl."
The house had emptied out over the course of the afternoon. The kids were at the pool or the beach or wherever teenagers went when they didn't want to be around adults. The other women had scattered to do their own things.
Just Meredith and Tom in the kitchen, the way it would be in a few months when Sophie was gone and the house was empty and every evening looked like this one.
"I talked to Peterson yesterday," Tom said, arranging crackers in a semicircle. "The numbers work. If he accepts my offer this fall, I could be out by January."
"That fast?"
"Why wait?" He set the board on the island and sat down across from her. "Twenty-two years I've been running that company. Peterson's ready to take over. I'm ready to let him." He spread some brie on a cracker, then added, casually, like it was already decided: "I ran the numbers on your practice too. If you sold, we'd never have to work again. Travel, relax, actually enjoy life for once."
Meredith reached for an olive. Chewed it slowly. Buying time.
"You don't seem excited," he said.
"I'm just thinking."
"About what?"
About the fact that she wasn't ready for this. Tom had already included her in his retirement fantasy—run the numbers, made the plans, assumed she wanted the same exit he did. But she hadn't agreed to anything. She was forty-five. Her mother had worked until sixty-eight. Retirement was for people who were done, and Meredith wasn't done. She loved her job. She was good at it. She'd spent fifteen years building her own practice, her own client list, her own reputation. It was the one thing that was purely hers—separate from Tom, separate from Sophie, separate from this house and these friends and all the roles she played for everyone else.
And what came after? Tom talked about travel and relaxation, vague ideas that sounded nice but didn't add up to a life. What would they actually do all day? Sit across from each other at every meal with nowhere to be?
"It's a lot to process," she said instead. "Big decision."
Tom nodded, accepting this. He didn't push—he never did—and somehow that made it worse. If he'd argued, she could have pushed back. Defined what she was feeling against his resistance. Instead he loved her and trusted her and assumed they wanted the same things.
Did they want the same things?
Twenty-three years. They'd raised a daughter together, built a life together, survived the hard seasons that every marriage faced. They'd argued about money and parenting and whose turn it was to empty the dishwasher, and they'd made up every time because that's what you did when you chose someone.
But she'd also been Meredith-and-Tom for so long she'd forgotten what just-Meredith felt like. And now, right as Sophie was leaving and she might finally have space to figure that out, Tom wanted to retire and be together all the time.
"I was thinking," Tom said, "we could walk over to Sophie's restaurant for dinner. See her in action. Embarrass her a little."
"She'd love that."
"I know. That's why we should do it."
He grinned, and the tension in Meredith's shoulders loosened. This was what she didn't want to lose—this version of them, easy and laughing, before the logistics of retirement turned into another thing to manage.
"Okay," she said. "Let's do it."
They left the house around six-thirty, walking hand in hand down 59th Street toward the restaurant. The evening was still bright, long summer light that stretched the shadows and made everything feel slow and golden. Tom wore a linen shirt he'd packed specifically for dinners out. Meredith wore a sundress she'd bought for this trip, something flowy and floral that she never would have worn at home.
The streets had that early-evening energy—families heading back from the beach, sunburned and tired, a dad pulling a wagon loaded with chairs and umbrellas. A couple walked past with a chocolate lab, and Tom stopped to pet it without asking, the way he always did.
"Remember when Sophie begged us for a dog every summer?" he said, catching up to her.
