A few weeks after Dustin’s arrest in Carrollton, Frank and Nancy sat down to a romantic dinner at their home in Carrollton.
Nancy had looked forward to this meal for days now, planning this date night for over a week.
She’d shopped all day, soaked the beans the previous evening, had the beef on a slow boil since that afternoon. And if the tortillas were store bought, the guacamole and salsas were homemade and spicy, though not too spicy—just the way Frank had always liked them. Nancy had ironed the tablecloth to within an inch of its life. The linen napkins, which had thin, red lines around their borders, were the same ones she used when company came over. But tonight it would be just the two of them, eating and laughing together like newlyweds.
Nancy appreciated how sweet Frank had been when he’d come home from work that evening. He’d bought fancy chocolate, red roses—the works. He’d dimmed the lights when he walked into the dining room and told her how beautiful she looked.
He’d even asked her if she wasn’t too cold, and although Frank loved to walk into cold rooms on hot summer nights, he’d turned the air conditioner down just a notch for her.
“That’s the dress I bought you, honey?” he asked.
The expensive dress fit Nancy well—it even flattered her figure. She could tell Frank had picked it with care.
“Love you, honey bunny,” she told him.
* * *
They were midway through the first course when Frank’s phone buzzed. A few months ago, he would have picked it up, left the room—left the house, even. Raley, the defense contractor, seemed to have Frank coming and going at all hours, sometimes for days at a time.
But Frank seemed to know how special this evening was.
“Let it ring,” he told Nancy, and reached out to take her hand.
“I want you to know how much I love you,” Frank said. “How much I appreciate everything you’ve done, and all that you’re doing in this marriage.”
“You make my life so rich,” said Nancy.
The thing was, she meant it, even though it so awkward to say. The words weren’t hers. Like Frank’s, they were plucked from a list of affirmative sentences the minister had provided them with during one of their therapy sessions. But, Nancy thought, that didn’t make them untrue.
Was it such a bad thing, working from a script that seemed to sum up so much of what they’d told him they felt for each other?
Nancy the homemaker. Frank the accountant.
Did that mean there was no room for poetry in their lives?
“Nancy,” Frank said. “I just hope you know how much I value—”
Before he could finish, his phone buzzed again. This time, he took it out of his pocket.
“Shit,” he said. “Shit, honey. I’ve got to get this.”
Then she was alone at the table, watching the food that she’d made with such care grow cold as Frank talked and talked—the conversation seemed to go on forever—in the other room.