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Now only one eyebrow goes up.
“I know, I know. It sounds like a scam. But it’s not cash. It’s a business that I technically have partial ownership in, exporting perfume.”
Now Hunter looks impressed. I wonder if he has been second-guessing the commitment to support me, now that his mother’s seen him married. It really does seem like a huge thing to do for someone he only really needed in his life for a month or two, just until his mother passes.
“Really?” I can hear the surprise in his tone.
“Yes. He’s going to send me all the paperwork, and we can check up on it, make sure it’s real. But it sounded true, and he wasn’t asking me for money or anything.”
“Wow,” Hunter says, and he looks down at the table top like the implications of this are just hitting him that I wouldn’t be here if I’d known this. I’m not at all sure he’s going to come to the same conclusions that I have about the happiness of the accident. “That’s something.”
I sigh. Hunter is wonderful, but sometimes I wish he’d give me a bit more to go on. “There’s more. To claim the inheritance, I’m expected to go back to Ireland and work for the company. There’s supposed to be salary and dividends and all that, but my grandmother apparently doesn’t believe in handouts, so I’d have to go be involved in the business operations.”
Now Hunter looks like he’s seen a ghost. “So you’d leave. You…wouldn’t need a green card anymore.”
I stare at him, stunned that this is his first response. I wasn’t here for the green card—that much I hoped had been clear. I’m Irish, and I have a home to go back to. Yes, things were hard there, but this wasn’t my only way out of that situation. There were other reasons I came here. I was looking for adventure, for something special I couldn’t find back home. For an escape, yes, but the possibility of an escape to something wonderful that could only be found by taking such a chance.
Really, I was looking for him.
Hunter stares at the table, past the stew, which is really best eaten hot but is cooling as we navigate this. I’m waiting, which I’ve found is sometimes the best tactic with Hunter. He may be terse, but given enough time, he’ll find the words for what he means to say.
“Do you want to?” he asks finally. “Go back, I mean?”
I have no idea what he wants me to say, and I feel like I need to know more before I can give him an honest answer. But I’ve had all morning to think about this, and perhaps he needs some time to decide if he really wants me here, if he’d rather I go back.
So I open my mouth, and I say the scariest words I’ve ever uttered in my life. “I don’t know.”
10
Hunter
For the next few days, Sophia and I orbit around each other, neither of us sure what to say. I want more than anything to beg her to stay with me, but the more I think about it, the more I know how selfish that would be.
She came here, when it comes down to it, for money. She was alone and afraid and being evicted, and she was desperate for someone to bail her out. At the time it felt like a fair transaction, but now I wonder if I haven’t taken advantage of her. Yes, I gave her those things that she wanted, support, and company, and a comfortable place to live. But she’s given me what I needed—peace of mind for my mother, and I couldn’t be more grateful for that.
I’m also sure that if she knew she had a billion dollar business waiting for her in Ireland, she never would’ve made a profile on that website. I’d never have heard of her, and someone else would be here in her place. The idea guts me—that I might never have met the most beautiful person I’ve ever known, inside and out. The thought of being here without her makes my chest ache.
She’s out on the balcony when I finish work—I should be spending every second I have left with her, but I’m afraid to be near her, waiting for the moment when she says she wants to leave. She’s watching the stars appear one by one through the branches of the trees, and I wonder if she’s wishing on them for one thing or the other. I join her, leaning against the railing, and Cocoa beats her tail against the wooden railing in greeting.
“I want to say there are more stars here,” Sophia says. “But they’re the same stars, aren’t they? Passing over Ireland, and here. They just can’t be seen in Dublin with all the lights.”
I nod. “It’s the same in American cities. Too much light pollution. Not enough stars.”
She continues to stare at them, and I can see them reflected in her eyes. “I never knew what I was missing, before,” she says. “But now I’d hate to go back to not being able to see them.”
My stomach drops, and I clear my throat. “Have you heard from your cousin?”
She nods. “We’ve been emailing. Did you check on that information I sent you?”
“Yeah. The business checks out. All the names are correct, everything matches.”
“He sent me a picture of himself with my grandmother,” she says. “She looked so much like my mother.”
I swallow the lump in my throat. I want to make excuses, tell her there’s no way to be really sure it’s not a scam. But I deal with scams in my line of work, and I’m satisfied this inheritance thing is legitimate.
“Have you decided to go?” I ask.
Sophia looks over at me, her face dark, her profile illuminated by the lights inside. She’s quiet for a long moment, and my palms begin to sweat despite the chill in the air. “Do you want me to stay?” she asks.
