Chap­ter 6 begins with Lucia prepar­ing an elab­o­rate din­ner at sev­en o’clock, which is served with a focus on fresh veg­eta­bles, cater­ing to Mag­gie and Aidan’s veg­an diet. The meal con­sist­ed of care­ful­ly pre­pared dish­es high­light­ing fla­vors from mush­rooms, egg­plants, and roast­ed squash, each course pleas­ant­ly fill­ing me up. I couldn’t help but express my admi­ra­tion for Lucia’s culi­nary skills, telling her that if she cooked for me reg­u­lar­ly, I might eas­i­ly tran­si­tion to a veg­an lifestyle. Through­out the meal, Mag­gie dom­i­nat­ed the con­ver­sa­tion, her excite­ment about the engage­ment evi­dent as she proud­ly dis­played her engage­ment ring—a beau­ti­ful pear-cut dia­mond that had been passed down as a fam­i­ly heir­loom from Aidan’s grand­moth­er. She eager­ly shared the details of their wed­ding plans, describ­ing a rus­tic, coun­try-style recep­tion that seemed per­fect­ly fit­ting for their per­son­al­i­ties. Aidan, how­ev­er, remained most­ly silent dur­ing these dis­cus­sions, seem­ing­ly con­tent to let Mag­gie take the lead, his reserved demeanor stand­ing in stark con­trast to her enthu­si­as­tic out­pour­ing of ideas.

As the con­ver­sa­tion shift­ed to their hon­ey­moon plans, Aidan con­fessed they hadn’t yet decid­ed on a des­ti­na­tion, leav­ing the top­ic open-end­ed. I began to share fond mem­o­ries of my own hon­ey­moon cruise, eager to spark some con­nec­tion, but quick­ly real­ized I had lost Maggie’s atten­tion. She was busy check­ing her Apple Watch, which kept buzzing with work noti­fi­ca­tions, indi­cat­ing her com­mit­ment to her career. Mag­gie excused her­self abrupt­ly, need­ing to take a work-relat­ed call, which under­scored her ded­i­ca­tion to her job, even dur­ing fam­i­ly meals. I attempt­ed to con­tin­ue the con­ver­sa­tion with Aidan, ask­ing about his thoughts on their future togeth­er, but his brief respons­es only added to the awk­ward­ness, leav­ing us in an uncom­fort­able silence. It seemed as though Aidan wasn’t as keen on shar­ing much about his life, mak­ing me feel like an out­sider in their rela­tion­ship.

When Mag­gie returned to the table, I tried to break the ten­sion by encour­ag­ing her to share some “good news.” She hes­i­tat­ed at first, unsure whether to reveal it, but it even­tu­al­ly became clear that her excit­ing announce­ment was a sig­nif­i­cant pro­mo­tion at her com­pa­ny, Capac­i­ti. Mag­gie would be tak­ing on the respon­si­bil­i­ty of lead­ing a new divi­sion focused on advanc­ing all-elec­tric air trav­el, an area I found incred­i­bly fas­ci­nat­ing. She shared her excite­ment about the oppor­tu­ni­ty to work with high-pro­file indi­vid­u­als, includ­ing Arman­do Cas­ta­do from UPS, who had shown inter­est in the project. Her enthu­si­asm was pal­pa­ble, and she spoke with great pride about the promis­ing dis­cus­sions that had already tak­en place, hint­ing at a bright future. Over­come by emo­tion, I hugged her tight­ly, still pro­cess­ing the impact of this life-chang­ing news. It was clear that this pro­mo­tion would not only shape her pro­fes­sion­al life but would also mark a major turn­ing point in her per­son­al jour­ney.

As the evening began wind­ing down, Mag­gie offered to box up the left­overs, while I took a moment to excuse myself and vis­it the bath­room. Upon enter­ing, I was imme­di­ate­ly struck by the abun­dance of lux­u­ri­ous beau­ty prod­ucts scat­tered around the space, a sign of Maggie’s love for high-end per­son­al care. After wash­ing my hands, I heard the unmis­tak­able sound of a run­ning toi­let, which seemed out of place, so I decid­ed to inves­ti­gate. To my sur­prise, I dis­cov­ered a black plas­tic bag taped under­neath the toi­let lid, some­thing that piqued my curios­i­ty imme­di­ate­ly. Just as I was about to exam­ine the con­tents more close­ly, Mag­gie knocked on the door, call­ing out to check on me. Her unex­pect­ed inter­rup­tion only height­ened my intrigue, and I couldn’t help but won­der if there was some­thing more to the bag that she didn’t want me to uncov­er. The mys­tery left me with a sense of unease, as I silent­ly resolved to find out what it was when the time was right.