No name, but I didn't need one. I didn't confront her. I wanted to see what she would choose on our anniversary. I even bought the expensive pearl bracelet she'd been eyeing for months just to see if it mattered to her even a little.
Spoiler: it didn't. She didn't hesitate for a second that morning. She didn't even glance at the dining table. No curiosity, no guilt, no anything.
She walked out like it was nothing. That told me everything. I wasn't emotional about it. It just confirmed what I already knew.
So I sat there watching the little red dot on the tracker move straight toward the pier. She wasn't meeting friends or going on any random trip. She was going exactly where her messages told me she would be. Nothing was confusing anymore.
She chose what she wanted, so I acted based on that. Tracking the little red dot was almost boring because everything happened exactly the way I expected. She drove straight to the pier, parked, and the signal stopped moving once she boarded the ferry. After that, the app couldn't track her on water, but I didn't need it.
I already knew where she was going, who she was meeting, and for how long. While she was on her getaway, I called a florist downtown. They handle deliveries to resorts all the time. I asked if they could get it to the island quickly.
The florist asked, "What flowers, sir?" I chose white lilies because Sophia hated them. She once told me, "Lilies look like funeral flowers. They make me uncomfortable."
Perfect. "Send a large bouquet of white lilies," I said, "and include a card." "What would you like it to say?"
I kept it simple. "With deepest sympathy for your loss." No signature, no name, just that. I didn't need to explain the meaning.
Sophia would understand instantly. Alex, too. While the order was being prepared, I could already picture it. She'd see the lilies she hated, freak out, and he'd get mad when he read the card and realized it was from me.
An hour later, my phone rang. It wasn't Sophia's name on the screen. It was Alex. His name popped up on my screen, and I actually laughed.
I picked up. Alex didn't say a word before he started yelling. "What the hell is wrong with you? You think this is funny?"
"Sending funeral flowers to our room?" Our room. Not her room. He didn't even hesitate before saying it.
I just said, "I sent what I thought was appropriate." "What does that mean?" "It means," I said, calm as ever, "I'm offering my condolences. She just lost something important."
"What? Lost what?" "Her husband." There was a pause while he processed that I knew.