I nearly fainted when she told me.
“You hate everyone,” I reminded her.
“Exactly. I’m excellent at rejecting bad applications.”
She was joking.
Mostly.
And Russell?
Russell lived another fourteen months.
Longer than every
doctor predicted.
We never remarried.
Instead, we started again.
Dinner.
Movies.
Walks.
Arguments over terrible television.
He moved into a modest apartment near Bellweather House.
No staff.
No chauffeurs.
No expensive watches.
One afternoon, I found him washing dishes.
I leaned against the kitchen doorway.
“Do you even know how?”
He looked insulted.
“I built a multinational intelligence empire.”
“You put dish soap in the dishwasher last week.”
“A minor operational setback.”
We laughed until he had to sit down.
That was the version of Russell I loved most.
Not the rich man.
Not the dangerous man.
Not the mastermind.
Just Russell.
Aging.
Afraid.
Trying.
Two weeks before he died, we sat on the porch at Bellweather House.
Autumn leaves covered the garden.
He looked thin beneath his coat.
“Emily?”
