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Epilogue

Rosalie

Five Years Later

“We’re late.Get your sneakers on, Denny,” I called out from the kitchen where I quickly dropped Denny’s snack into his lunch bag.

As I stepped out of the kitchen, I looked at my five-year-old sitting on the floor with his shoes. He looked up at me with his big, dark brown eyes, fine, light brown hair just like mine, and smiled.

Sometimes I couldn’t believe I had a child. When Shane and I found out we were having a boy, we both knew he should be named after my dad. Months later, when Dennis DeLeo Ventana was born, my father was right there in the waiting room with Joanna. Everything couldn’t have been more perfect.

I checked the time as I backed out of the driveway. Somehow we managed to leave on time for camp. I smiled at Denny in his car seat, trying to catch his eye, but he looked preoccupied.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

He nodded and rubbed his sleepy eyes. “Yes.”

I couldn’t let it drop, I could tell something was on his mind.

“Is something bothering you, sweetie?” I asked.

“No, I was just thinking about Daddy,” he said as he looked out the window. “I miss him.”

“I know. I miss him too.” I paused, trying to keep my voice from sounding too sad. “He’ll be home tonight though.”

“Why couldn’t we go with him?” Denny asked. “We always go with him.”

“Next time.”

I turned my focus back on the road. I didn’t know the answer to Denny’s question, I had the same question myself. Normally Shane would only do art exhibitions when we could all travel together as a family. This time Shane wanted to go by himself. He didn’t tell me why, and when I asked, he got upset and said he didn’t want to talk about it.

It was the first time in our relationship that Shane had become secretive. I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt and let it go, but it nagged at me.

Is he pulling away from me?It was a question that had lately echoed in my head, but despite him saying he wasn’t, I couldn’t shake my insecurity. His traveling alone didn’t make sense to me. We did everything together, but maybe that was the problem. Maybe he needed a break. Maybe he just wanted to be alone. Maybe he was rethinking us. I pushed that thought into the back of my mind, flicked my eyes up to the rearview mirror, and forced my voice to sound cheerful.

“It was just a quick trip,” I said, more to myself than to Denny. “There will be others we can go on.”

Denny smiled then started talking about some of the kids at camp as we pulled up to the entrance. I walked him into the building. He spotted a friend and started skipping away from me.

“Wait,” I said, and he quickly turned around. “I need some nose.”

He ran over to me, wrapped his arms around my waist, and looked up at me. I bent down and touched my nose to his.

“Beep,” I said, as we both smiled. As he pulled away, I gently swept his hair to the side with my fingertips before he ran off again.

I sighed as I watched Denny get to his friends. When did he stop being a baby? Seemed like just yesterday he was learning to walk. As I turned to head back towards my car, my phone buzzed in my back pocket with a text.

Let me know when you get here.

I noddedmy response to the text and checked the time. I was about ten minutes away. I still couldn’t believe I was doing this. Rosalie Ventana is meeting a man in a hotel room! The thought was crazy. What was I doing??? I refused to answer that question. There was no way I was passing this up.

My heart raced as I parked the car near the entrance of the Princeton Hyatt. I couldn’t remember the last time I had been there, but it had been years. I smiled to myself as I remembered the times Shane and I used to meet at the Hyatt in New Brunswick. The hotels didn’t look anything alike, but just seeing the simple font of the name was enough to get me reminiscing.

The buzz from another text took me out of my reverie. Expecting it to be Shane, I went into my texts without reading the notification.

Happy Birthday, beautiful! Hope my brother has something good planned for you.

I smiled,seeing the text from Noah Craven. Even though they met as adults, Shane and Josh had become close over the years. It surprised me how much they had in common besides their looks. I made a mental note to text him later. Nothing was interrupting me now.

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