Maybe this is all nerves. Maybe moving to another country is meant to feel like stepping out onto a bridge in the fog.
It is a decent thought.
Shame I do not quite believe it.
An hour later the first wave of departures begins. Trains. Babysitters. Dogs that apparently cannot be left emotionally unsupported for too long, which makes me feel a grudging kinship with them.
There are hugs. So many hugs.
I endure them with reasonable grace.
Becca clings to me for a second longer than necessary. “You better send photos.”
“Of Toronto?”
“Of everything. Your flat. Your office. Your winter wardrobe when you inevitably realise London has not, in fact, prepared you for Canada.”
“I already own a coat.”
She laughs into my shoulder. “I’m going to miss you.”
Something twists lightly in my chest. “I’m going to miss you too.”
She lets go and pulls a face. “Ugh. Hate this. Right. Bye.”
Once she is gone, the others follow quickly. More handshakes, more promises to visit, more joking threats to send manuscripts across the Atlantic at unreasonable hours. Then it is just me and Luke at the table, surrounded by empty glasses and the debris of a thoroughly civilised evening.
He glances at his watch. “Do you need me to continue supervising your emotions, or are you all right from here?”
“That depends. Are you charging by the hour?”
“I should.”
“I’ll risk it, then.”
He stands, shrugging on his coat. “Send me your Toronto address when you’ve got one. I need to know where to direct my complaints.”
“You can send them by email like a normal person.”
“I could,” he says, “but then I’d lose the pleasure of imagining them crossing an ocean.”
I stand as well. “Safe journey home.”
He pauses, then gives me a look that is almost kind if you are willing to squint at it hard enough.
“If you get there and hate it,” he says, “try admitting that before stubbornness turns it into a personality trait.”
I hold his gaze for a second. “Goodnight, Luke.”
“I’ll miss you,” he mutters, and heads for the door.
I watch him go with a small smile.
Then the smile fades, because the table is empty now and the evening, stripped of noise and obligation, is suddenly what it has been all along.
A goodbye.
To colleagues, to London, and to a version of my life that calcified so slowly I almost failed to notice.
