Page 130 of Carry Me Home

She’s outside the café, reaching up to adjust the chalkboard. Her back is to me, dark curls escaping from a messy bun, wearing the apron she’s had for years – the one with the ink stain on the pocket that she’s never been able to get out.

I open the car door. Step out.

The sound makes her turn.

She freezes.

I freeze.

Twenty metres between us. The harbour, the boats, the entire village as backdrop. And Nina, standing there with chalk dust on her fingers, staring at me.

‘Tom.’

My name. Just my name. But the way she says it – soft, surprised, and underneath it a tremor I’ve never heard before.

‘Nina.’

We stand there. Not moving. Not speaking. The distance between us full of salt air and two months of silence and eleven years of everything we’ve never said.

She looks different. There’s colour in her cheeks that wasn’t there when I left. A steadiness in her stance. She looks like a woman who’s been building things.

‘You’re early,’ she says finally. ‘The christening’s not until tomorrow.’

‘I know. I wanted to—’ I trail off. I don’t know what I wanted. Or I do, and I can’t say it here, now, across twenty metres of cobblestone. ‘I’m staying at my parents’ tonight.’

‘Right. Of course.’

Silence. The gulls. The water. A halyard clinking.

‘The café looks good,’ I say. Stupid. Obvious. But the alternative is standing here not speaking until one of us turns to stone.

‘Thanks.’ She glances back at the chalkboard. ‘I was just updating the specials.’

‘What’s the special?’

‘Lemon drizzle cake. Mum’s recipe.’

‘Your mum’s lemon drizzle is legendary.’

‘I know. I tell her that. She pretends to be modest.’ A small smile, there and gone – like a light switching on and off. ‘She asks about you. Every time she calls. How’s Tom doing up there in Scotland? Is he eating properly?’

‘Tell her I’m fine. Eating properly.’

‘I’ll pass it on.’

The silence again. But different this time. Not empty – full. Full of things pressing against the surface, looking for cracks.

‘Nina—’

‘Tom—’

We both stop. Both wait.

‘You first,’ she says.

‘No, you.’

She shakes her head. ‘I don’t even know what I was going to say.’