Vodka Espresso

7. time

*

July, 2017

Ingrid and Ian encountered each other again at breakfast the next morning. Arthur was away for the weekend, to tend to his sick old mother in Belfast. Ian handed her an envelope as he greeted her.

"You got mail," he said.

"Oh, really?"

She went to sit at the table and sliced the envelope open, smiling when she read its contents.

"What is it?" Ian asked, curious.

"A wedding invitation," Ingrid answered.

"Oh, dear. Good thing I don't get those anymore."

She laughed. "Have the funerals started yet?"

His eyebrows furrowed, but this morbid remark did not seem to shock him as others had.

"Goodness, no. Not among my generation at least. You seem really pleased about your invitation," he said, to turn the conversation back to a merrier topic.

"Yeah, two of my old housemates are getting married. And this is the first wedding invitation that I get as...Ingrid only. Just me, myself and I." A cloud passed over her face. "I mean, obviously, back in New York, we got a lot addressed to Mr and Mrs Astor. Look, they only wrote my first name on this one."

She turned the invitation around to show him and let him pick it up to inspect it closely.

"Rose and Lisette, such beautiful names. Twelfth of August. I suppose you'll need the day off?"

Ingrid smiled. "It's a Saturday, I don't think you'll miss me much."

He nodded. "Do me a favour and remind me later at the office to jot it down. Just to be safe."

"Will do, bossman."

"Don't..." He leaned against the countertop, one hand in the pocket of his trousers and the other holding his cup of coffee. "Don't call me that, please."

Ingrid chuckled and stood up to start fixing her own breakfast. "Sorry. And... speaking of days off. I'm going to need next Monday off, too."

"Why?"

"It's..." She hesitated, eyes trained on the steaming coffee machine. "Very personal. It's the one day in the year that's sacred to me. I don't care much for Christmas or Easter or New Year's or whatever the fuck else...July tenth is the one day a year that I really need for myself."

The glassy depth of her eyes struck him to his core. "I see. I'll...make a note on that, too."

"Thank you," she murmured.

As she filled her mug, she glanced at him from the corner of her eye and saw he watched her with undisguised tenderness. He only knew bits and pieces of her life story and she guessed he might be thinking of her dead husband. Ingrid felt the need to set the record straight.

"It's not what you're thinking," she said out loud.

"How could you possibly know what I'm thinking?" The pity cleared from his eyes, replaced by bewilderment for the most part.

"It's what people usually think. Employers, in particular, who read in my file that I'm a widow and automatically assume that the tenth of July is the anniversary of my widowhood. It's not."

"What is it, then? If you don't mind me asking, of course."

"It's the day I died inside." She gave a grim snicker and took a plate of leftover pizza to the table. "My grandma died on the tenth of July, mere days after my tenth birthday."