Laying in his arms with the late afternoon sun on their bare shoulders, Alice knew Rodolfo was a piece of garbage. Rubbing her nose on his his warm so biteable skin, Alice admitted to herself that she had known his unsuitability for years. Alice closed her eyes and turned away deeper into his pillows. His voice drifted away.

They had been off and on for about a year but steady for over the last three. It sounds silly to have grown children and a mortgage and still talking about going steady. They had met cute at a second hand book. Alice had been stretching up for a particularly lovely copy of Mansfield Park. Rodolfo swooped in and grabbed the leather bound volume. She gasped; he pretended to be shocked. Rodolfo offered her the book if she agreed to coffee at a place around the corner.

Maybe Alice knew he was garbage even then since she never got that book. But he was her garbage. For the first time since divorcing Jerry, Alice remembered feeling seen and understood. For a long while Alice dreamt they would be each other’s storybook ending.

The Butter Cookie incident told her plainly what she had felt in her heart. When her oldest was little he’d broken a china figurine gifted to Alice by her grandmother. It had been passed down in the family and Alice had treasured it. Last Thanksgiving in front of Rodolfo and all the dinner guests, Ethan presented her with a replacement. He had searched shops for years to find a pristine figure of a girl hiding a butter cookie behind her back. It had weighed on him even though he had long been forgiven. Alice remembered opening the carefully wrapped treasure and ugly crying as the memories rushed back of her Nana. She cleared a pride of place in her cabinet.

A week later it was gone, just an empty space amongst the Royal Daltons. Alice asked Rodolfo and he casually mentioned he had re-gifted it to his secretary since she collects figurines and he’d forgotten to get her a gift. Alice had been gobsmacked. Wordless her mough hung open. She insisted he get it back. Rodolfo laughed and shrugged. Alice screamed the house down. He raged at her selfishness and slammed out of her home.

Alice reached out to his secretary herself and explained the error. They arranged a pickup and Alice insisted on giving the kind woman a Hummel gift card. Alice and Rodolfo didn’t speak for a month. Gradually they fell back into each other after meeting at a mutual friend’s party. But Alice knew.

“Did you hear me? Things are getting serious with Gail.”

“I was quiet, but I was not blind,” Alice replied into the soft of the pillow.

“What?”

“It’s a quote. It’s nothing. I heard,” Alice said, climbing from the covers and putting her feet on the floor.