Promises to Keep by Jane Green Page A

back.
    “Couldn’t you have bought them for yourself?” Lila asked after they had left and Callie was continuing to talk about them. “I thought you were doing really well with the photography.”
    “I am,” Callie said sadly. “But that’s college money for the kids. Not my frivolous jewelry money.”
    “There was nothing frivolous about those earrings,” Lila said.
    “How would you know? You barely took your eyes off the engagement rings to notice.”
    “You’re right, you’re right. I’m sorry. But I did see them, and now we both have something to aspire to.”
     
    “I love you.” Callie’s eyes fill with tears as she puts the earrings on, admires them in the mirror—they are just as beautiful as they were the first time she saw them—and walks over to the bed, where Reece is now lying. She leans over to kiss him.
    “I love you,” he says, drawing back to look her in the eyes, to make sure she knows just how much, and he kisses her again, pulling her on top of him and slipping the robe gently, but firmly, off her shoulders.

    Callie finishes her makeup with a dash of clear gloss, smacks her lips together, then twists her hair up behind her head, securing it with a large, glittery clip.
    “You look beautiful.” Reece comes up behind her and kisses her neck, and she smiles at him in the mirror.
    Eleven years, she thinks, and she loves him as much today as the day she married him. No, not as much. More. Her love for him has deepened and strengthened, and there has never been a moment when she has doubted him, or their relationship, or thought that the grass may be greener somewhere else.
    Their relationship is, in many ways, an anomaly. None of her friends fully understand it. With him away so much, there must be problems, they figure. She must be so lonely. Poor Callie, having to do so much on her own.
    The distance, she thinks, is precisely what makes it work. The fact that they are two independent, self-sufficient people who love each other, but do not spend their lives thinking they desperately need each other, is what makes their partnership stronger.
    Callie is the love of Reece’s life, and he of hers. When he is traveling she is thrilled. She gets to organize Girls’ Nights Out with her closest friends, or crawl into bed at eight p.m. with Eliza—shh, don’t tell anyone—and watch silly movies and eat popcorn and chocolate for dinner.
    And when he comes home she is thrilled to see him, marveling at how handsome she still finds him. She looks at him across a room and feels her heart flutter, filled with a sweet smugness that he is hers.
    She loves his smell, his touch, his taste. Often, during the night, when he is fast asleep and she is restless, tossing and turning, she will lean over and kiss his shoulder or his arm. He will not wake up, but even in his sleep he will reach for her and stroke her hand, before falling deeper into sleep.
    They have never been the couple to sleep spooned together. Callie can’t sleep spooned together. But she likes knowing he’s there, watching him when he is sprawled, like a little boy, legs splayed across the blankets.

    L ila peers out of the window, waiting for Steffi to arrive.
    “Christ,” she mutters out loud. “I love her like she’s my own sister, but why is she always so damned late?”
    “She’ll be here.” Ed calls from the hallway, where he’s setting up the bar. “Do you want me to slice the lemons and limes for the drinks?”
    “You’re the best,” Lila says and smiles at him. “My big lovely Waspy man.” She walks over to him and puts her arms around his waist.
    “Will you stop calling me Waspy?” He looks down at Lila. “I’m English. It’s different. We don’t have Wasps there.”
    “But you still are,” she says. “That’s why you’re in charge of the alcohol.”
    “What?” He pulls back, confused. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
    “Wasps drink, Jews eat. Okay, so not Wasps—Christians, whatever.