Fifty-Three
A Few Years Later
It was a Sunday morning. Maddy was sitting opposite Eva at a little table outside a café that described itself asindependentandartisan, although in reality, it mainly just sold overpriced toast.
But it was a pretty location. And Maddy liked to look at her love in beautiful places. She liked to look at Eva in shitty places, too, actually. She just liked to look at her.
Maddy reached across and stole a piece of Eva’s toast. Eva didn’t even look up. ‘You ordered your own.’
‘I’m starved, and mine didn’t come out at the same time. I’ll pay you back when mine arrives.’
‘It isliterallycoming in a second.’
Maddy considered this while chewing. ‘You don’t know how hungry I am, though.’
‘I guess I don’t want you hangry,’ Eva conceded. ‘Not after the left-turn incident.’
‘Iindicated. That man had it coming,’ Maddy insisted. ‘I could have killed him, and then I’d have had to bear the brunt of the guilt for the rest of my life.’
Eva laughed into her coffee. ‘When I first met you, you wouldn’t say boo to a goose. Now you’re robbing my plate in front of my eyes and calling men in the street, “Selfish Fuckface.”’
Maddy was startled by that very true observation. ‘Oh, god, have I overcorrected. You want the toast back?’
‘Nah. You’re sexy when you push me around,’ Eva smiled.
Maddy smiled at her, feeling her gooseflesh pop.
This was the strange thing about love, Maddy had discovered. People often described it as fireworks or euphoria or overwhelming joy, and back in the day, Maddy had rolled her eyes and thought the best you could hope for was to know someone liked their bath a bit too hot or a cheese that smelled like puke. If you had supposed fire, it was only a passing madness. It would burn out.
But now, Maddy had the fireworks, and she knew it wentwiththe ease of being together and knowing one another deeply. They enhanced one another, made the connection stronger. The delight of a theft of carbohydrates. The feeling when you heard them coming in the front door. Ordinary things that flipped her tummy when she looked at Eva. She was both more stimulated and more at ease. It made no sense.
Maddy leaned back slightly and looked down the street. The morning was warm already, the British city doing that rare thing where it briefly became convinced it was in southern Europe. It was a good day.
Maddy remembered something. ‘God, I forgot to tell you…Adamemailed me.’
‘Really?’ Eva said, surprised.
As well she might be. After Maddy and Adam had completed the work of separating their lives, Adam had vanished completely. They hadn’t had contact in years. Until this morning.
‘Yeah, he said he’s engaged again, and now he gets it, why I left him for you. He forgives us both.’
‘Oh. Well, I wasn’t really losing sleep over his forgiveness after his behaviour,’ Eva said. ‘But thanks, I guess?’
Maddy laughed. ‘He’s found real love, and it’s changed his perspective.’ She sighed. ‘Good for him.’
Eva chuckled. ‘Very magnanimous of you.’
‘As if I could begrudge him,’ Maddy said. She stared off into the distance, feeling simple gratitude for her life the way it was now.
Then she frowned. ‘Hang on.’
Eva looked up over the rim of her coffee cup. ‘What?’
Maddy pointed down the road. ‘If you go around that corner… isn’t that where the greenhouse is?’
‘Oh?’ Eva said casually.
‘Do you know the one I mean?’ Maddy asked.
