Page 42 of Carry Me Home

‘Goodnight, Tom.’

‘Goodnight, Nina.’

I hang up before I can say anything else. The phone is warm in my hand. I press it against my sternum and lie there, staring at the ceiling, feeling the heat of it through my T-shirt like a handprint.

The darkness doesn’t feel heavy anymore. The bed doesn’t feel empty. And I am not going to examine why the sound of Tom Darcy saying goodnight is still vibrating somewhere in my ribcage, because that examination leads somewhere I am not prepared to go.

Chips sighs in his sleep.

I turn over and press my face into the pillow and tell myself to stop thinking.

It doesn’t work.

I lie awake for a long time, and the thing I think about – the thing I keep coming back to, circling like a moth around a light it knows is dangerous – is not the phone call. Not the months that have been passing while I’ve been metaphorically sleeping through life. Not the grief.

It’s quiz night. Tom’s face, inches from mine. His hands on my waist and the warmth of him and the beat – that single beat – where the air between us changed into something I didn’t recognise. I’d pulled back. Or Brynn had arrived. Or both, I can’t remember the order, but there’d been a moment where I hadn’t pulled back, where I’d stayed, and something in me had been⁠—

What?

What had I been?

I don’t know. I fall asleep not knowing, which is worse than not sleeping at all.

I wake to sunlight and Chips demanding breakfast with escalating urgency.

‘All right,’ I tell him, stumbling out of bed. ‘All right. Stop it.’

He doesn’t stop it. I feed him anyway.

The morning routine is grounding – coffee, shower, the process of turning myself into someone who can face the day. I open the café on autopilot, and I’m halfway through the first latte when I catch myself standing at the counter, coffee cup paused in mid-air, replaying the sound of Tom’s voice saying goodnight.

I put the coffee down. I finish the latte. I do not think about it again.

I think about it twice more before ten o’clock.

The breakfast rush is steady. Bill and Frankie come in at their usual time, argue about the crossword, leave a tip they pretend is accidental. Tilly settles into her window seat. A few tourists drift through, asking about vegan options and WiFi passwords. I move through it like breathing – the work I know, the rhythm I trust – and if my hands are slightly less steady than usual, if I keep glancing at the door like I’m expecting someone, nobody mentions it.

At ten, Brynn arrives.

She’s not in her work clothes, which is unusual – Brynn lives in her blue overalls to the point where I’m not sure she has anything else. Today she’s wearing a jumper that might actually be new, her hair down instead of its usual practical braid, and there’s something about her face – a brightness and a tiredness layered on top of each other, like someone who’s been up all night feeling too many things.

‘Coffee?’ I ask.

‘Please.’ She slides onto a stool. ‘And whatever pastry has the most sugar in it. I need sustenance.’

‘Big morning?’

‘Big night.’ She accepts the coffee and wraps her hands around it like she’s cold, even though it’s May. ‘Kit proposed to Isla.’

The words take a moment to land. ‘What?’

‘Last night. After we all left the pub. He took her down to the harbour – you know that spot by the boathouse, where the lights reflect off the water? He asked her. She said yes.’

‘Oh my God.’ I’m smiling before I’ve decided to, the kind of smile that takes over your whole face, making the muscles ache so much they no longer feel like yours, and the happiness is real – completely, uncomplicatedly real. ‘Brynn, that’s wonderful. That’s⁠—’

And then the hollow arrives. Not after the happiness. Not instead of it. With it, simultaneous, the way grief always arrives – right in the middle of the good thing, sharing the same breath.

‘That’s so lovely,’ I finish, and my voice only wavers on the last word, and I don’t think Brynn notices.