Three years earlier

As the credits roll on the television screen, I grab the remote control and flick to a new station. Somehow in the last six months, I’ve become the sort of woman who sits around the house all day, watching soap operas. It’s literally the only thing that I do the entire day. Well, that’s not true. In the morning, I watch game shows. And sometimes I surf the web on my phone. I occasionally eat a little. Occasionally. I’ve become skeletal.

Anyway, there’s not much for me to do anymore. Rosalie’s closed three months ago. It fell apart quickly after I stopped working there.

I hear Nick’s heavy footsteps coming up to the second floor. I glance down on my watch—it’s the middle of the day. Sometimes he’ll come home for lunch, but that was two hours ago. I wonder what he’s doing home.

The thought of it makes me uneasy.

Nick appears at the bedroom door. There are faint purple circles under his eyes, but he manages a thin smile. He doesn’t smile for real very much these days. That’s fair though. He doesn’t have a lot to smile about.

“Hi,” I say.

He glances over my shoulder, at the bedroom window. “It’s stuffy in here. You should open the window. It’s a nice day outside.”

“I’m fine.”

But he still pushes past me and walks over to the window. I back up a few inches in my wheelchair. I use the chair all the time now. I gave up on walking several months

ago, around when Rosalie’s shut down. The amount of effort it takes to take a few steps isn’t worth it.

Nick throws the window open. I suppose it’s nice outside

—the same cool spring day when Nick first took me out to see the restaurant all those years ago. But I’ve lost so much weight in the last two years that the breeze goes straight through me, and I shiver. Sometimes it feels like my skin is hanging off my bones.

“Better, right?” he says.

I nod, because it’s easier than arguing. I’ll close it again when he leaves.

“Maybe we could go outside together?” he says. I cringe. “I don’t want to deal with the stairs.”

He blows out a breath. “You know, I can convert the dining room into a bedroom. I told you I could—”

“It’s fine. I don’t feel like going outside anyway.”

Nick mumbles something under his breath that I can’t make out. It’s probably better I didn’t hear it.

“What are you doing home?” I ask him.

He frowns and wrings his hands together. He’s here for a reason. He didn’t just come up here to open the window. He may as well spit it out already.

“Don’t be mad,” he says, “but I called Dr. Heller yesterday.”

I look up at him sharply. Why would he call my neurologist without my permission? “Excuse me?”

“Look, you just seem…” He sinks down onto the bed so he can see eye to eye with me. “I’m worried about you, Rosie.”

“So what brilliant insight did Dr. Heller have?”

He pushes on, ignoring my sarcasm. “She thought you should do a course of physical therapy.”

“Physical therapy?”

He nods eagerly. “I’ll take you to the appointments,” he says. “Will you go, Rosie?”

“What’s the point?” I say bitterly. “How am I supposed to walk better if I can barely move my legs?”

“Not for that,” he says. “Dr. Heller said it would help you get more independent, so I wouldn’t have to—”

I glare at him. “Oh, I get it now. You’re sick of helping me with every damn thing.”

I shouldn’t be surprised. Nick does a lot for me. He helps me in and out of bed—he even helps me into the shower and to get dressed in the morning. Even though I’m the chef in the family, he brings me all my meals now. He does everything for me. He never even complains. Not until now.

“Rosie, that’s not—”

“Just admit it, Nick. It’s not like anyone would blame you.”

He hangs his head. “Don’t do this. I’m just trying to help.”

I study his face. “Did Dr. Heller have any other helpful

advice?”

After an interminable pause, he digs into his pocket and pulls out a little orange bottle of pills. I inhale sharply.

“What’s that?”

“They’re antidepressants,” he says. “Dr. Heller thought they might help.”

“Oh God.” “Rosie…”

“I’m not taking those,” I say. “I don’t have depression. My situation is the problem. Anyone would be depressed in my situation.”

“They still might help.” He tries to reach for my hand, but I pull away. “Please, Rosie. Just try it. For a few weeks. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to keep taking them. But maybe they’ll help.”

I look into his eyes. He still loves me, for some reason.

He’s just trying to help.

“Fine.” I accept the bottle. “I’ll try them for a few weeks.”

But that night, I flush all the pills down the toilet.

Whenever I hear footsteps on the stairs, my heart leaps into my chest.

It’s almost always Nick. Who else would it be, visiting me in the middle of the day? That butterflies sensation reminds me of when we were first dating, of how excited I used to be to see him.

Except that’s not why I get butterflies now. I’m worried that any day now, Nick will throw up his hands. Tell me he’s done with me. He’s had enough.

It hasn’t happened yet, but it will. A person can only take so much.

But this time, it’s not Nick at all. It’s the silver haired, elderly woman who has permanently moved into one of the rooms at the motel. Her name is Greta, and she and Nick struck up a deal for a reasonable monthly rate to allow her to live at the motel long term.

I like Greta—she’s my only friend right now. She’s incredibly eccentric, with her long silver hair and her propensity to wear nightgowns twenty-four hours a day. But her visits to my room are the only bright spot in my week. She entertains me with stories about her life back in the carnival, or about her childhood back in Hungary. Or about Bernie, the carnie who used to be her husband before he dropped dead of a heart attack.

“Hello, Rosalie,” she says in her East European accent. “Hi, Greta.”

She cocks her head to the side. “You need to eat more. Soon you will be so skinny, my bad eyes won’t be able to see you anymore.”

I laugh and tug subconsciously at my T-shirt, which was snug when I bought it five years ago, and now is swimming on me. “I’m fine.”

“I will bring you food next time,” she says. “Something I cooked myself. And you will eat every bite.”

“Sure,” I murmur.

She sits beside me—her on the bed and me in my wheelchair. Her eyes rake over me and I shift in my chair. “I don’t like your aura today, Rosalie.”

“Sorry?”

She frowns at me. “I will read your fortune today.”

A sick sensation washes over me. I knew Greta used to tell fortunes in the carnival, but this is the first time she offered to tell my fortune. I never told her about that experience with Naomi, the woman who warned me about the terrible things that would happen if I married Nick.

She was right about the tragedy that changed my life. On the plus side, Nick hasn’t murdered anyone. Not as far as I know, anyway.

“I’d rather you didn’t,” I say.

Greta clasps my hand in hers. It’s cold and bony, the same as the fortune teller at the carnival all those years ago. “Tell me. What is your hesitation?”

“I just think… It’s all sort of silly.”

She studies my face. “No. You don’t think it’s silly. You are afraid.”

I swallow, my mouth suddenly bone dry. “I had my fortune told a long time ago and it didn’t go well.”

Greta’s eyes widen. “Tell me what happened.”

I realize I haven’t told anyone about that day at the carnival. I told Nick part of it, but not the entire story. I have carried it alone all these years.

“She predicted my multiple sclerosis,” I say. “She told me I was going to have a life-changing event.”

Greta waves a hand. “I am not impressed. What else did this charlatan say to you?”

“She told me not to marry Nick.” I bite down on my thumbnail. “Because… she… she said he was going to kill somebody if I did.”

Greta stares at me for a moment. And then she bursts out laughing. “Nick? Kill somebody? Oh, you did not believe that, did you? Nick wouldn’t hurt a fly! He is just as gentle and kind as my Bernie.”

“Well…”

“Listen to me, Rosalie.” Her wrinkled face becomes serious again. “Very few people have the gift. But I do. Let me tell your fortune.”

I say yes. Just to shut her up.

She turns down the lights first, and as the room descends into darkness, she sits down again on the bed beside me and takes my hands in her cold, wrinkled ones. She closes her eyes, and I can feel the gentle pressure on my fingers.

“You don’t use Tarot cards?” I ask.

She scoffs. “Only for charlatans. I do not need them.”

I sit there, in my wheelchair, feeling her icy hands in mine. The pressure intensifies and her eyelids flutter. If Nick were here, he would laugh at this display. He doesn’t believe in any of this stuff. Neither do I. Not really.

Except I wonder what she’s seeing. “Your future is bright, Rosalie,” she says. I stare at her. “What?”

“I see happiness,” she says. “I see great joy coming into your life. Joy like you have never felt before. For you and for Nick.”

“Really?” I say flatly.

“I see a happy future for you and Nick. Together. It is your destiny.”

I was more willing to believe Nick could be a murderer. There’s no happy future for me and Nick. Everything is different between the two of us now. I fell in love with Nick because I felt like I could tell him anything. But now it’s like we’re strangers, even though he’s constantly helping me with the most intimate things. He doesn’t look at me the way he did before. And who could blame him?

No, Nick and I will not have a happy ending. “Right,” I say. “Sure.”

She squeezes my hand in hers. For an old woman, she’s strong. “I lost my Bernie—it was the greatest tragedy of my life. Do not let Nick get away from you. Do not lose what you have with him. You must protect your marriage at all costs.”

I shake my head. “I…”

“Promise me, Rosalie. Promise me you will not let him go. Protect your marriage at all costs.”

Her grip on my hand is so tight, it hurts. I try to pull away, but she’s too strong. Or I’m too weak. “I… I promise.”

She gives me a hard look, then she releases my hand. The imprints of her fingers remain on my skin, darkening into what will become bruises. Greta made me swear not to let him go, but I don’t know what she means. If Nick wants to leave, there’s nothing I could do to stop him.