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I could have saidMarius did, but it would have been churlish and also untrue. He hadn’t planned or wanted to hurt me. He’d tried to stay in touch, to become friendly, but I’d been the one to insist on silence. I’d needed it, at the time. “Th-thank you,” I heard myself say, “for c-calling. We should have tea or something, the next time you’re here.”
“I’d like that. And will we see you at Christmas?”
I blinked at the receiver. “You w-want me to come for Christmas? W-without Marius?”
“Cousin Andrei’s ex-wives still come to Christmas. The ones who can stand him, anyway. And we miss you. We liked having you.”
“I liked…” I managed to stop myself before I accidentally told my ex-boyfriend’s mother that Iliked being had. “Um, it was nice. But wouldn’t Marius… I mean… W-wouldn’t it… It doesn’t seem…And w-what if there’s… W-what if I’m…w-w-w-ith…”With someone? I was used to that idea being unthinkable, but there it was. Thought.
“Then you could bring him with you.”
I gave an awkward little giggle. It sounded like a rom-com waiting to happen. A zany, gooey holiday flick in which I hired a gorgeous out-of-work actor to pretend to be my partner at my ex-boyfriend’s family Christmas. Cue hilarity and, if the premise was anything to go by, me probably being played by Zoe Kazan. “I…I’ll think about it.”
“You know, Edwin,” said Mrs. Chankseliani, “family is really just whoever sticks around.”56
That night, I dragged a pile of pillows and blankets up to the attic, and made myself a nest. It was still raining, but softly now, shushing against the skylight. It was too cloudy to see much of the sky, but I could watch the little droplets as they broke and gathered upon the glass, glinting silver like bits of fallen star.
For the first time, I allowed myself to think of a body next to mine that wasn’t Marius’s. To ache for plain brown eyes and a crinkly smile and big-knuckled hands to engulf my own. It hurt a little in ways I was—at last—ready to accept.
Because I knew it was the final piece of grief. Moving on.
The dining room.
I woke to silence and a stream of sunlight, the last few leaves clinging to the sycamore tree throwing their silhouettes against the tarnished sky.
The storm had passed.
And my feet were cold.
And a quick examination of my heart revealed old scars and fresh wounds andOh God, what have I done? There was nothing for it. I pulled the duvet over my head.
Yesterday’s fears seemed small and far away, and I was feeling more than usually like an utter fool. I’d rejected a man twice over…overnothing. Because I was worried he might leave me one day.
In my dark little burrow, I put my hands over my mouth to stifle a sound that was half-sob, half-giggle. The sheer absurdity was its own agony. Though I couldn’t deny that, gripped by confusion and pain, my actions had made a certain deranged sense. To me, at least. Probably not to Adam. Oh, what must he think of me now? A man to whom he had shown some of his own hurt, and I had very literally slammed my door in his face.
Mrs. Chankseliani had said I remembered everything, and once it had been true. I knew how to be a friend, a lover, a partner. I knew how to make someone feel cherished and seen and listened to—everything I had myself always so desperately wantedand been afraid I might never have because I was so used to being overlooked. So used to requiring care and patience when what I wanted was passion and connection and truth…everything Marius had given me once, and Adam had tried to offer me now.
How had I forgotten? How had I become so careless, so cruel, so locked inside my own uncertainties? I had allowed hurt to gain such ascendancy over me. Given it so much power. But I had come, at last, in the middle of a flood, to some fresher, deeper truth that was simply this: love is stronger than grief.
I loved Marius. I always would. He had given me ten years of his life, a gift I would hold dear until the day I died. But I liked Adam too. I liked him so very much. And I wanted to know him, to be with him, to learn him and understand him. It was exciting to imagine that I might one day know Adam as I had known Marius, and that possibilities lay before me—before us—of a journey we might take, a relationship we might build, together, whether it lasted a day, or a year, or a lifetime.
Assuming, of course, that I hadn’t fucked it up abominably before we’d even begun.
I threw off my covers, and hurried downstairs to dress. My house smelled of stagnant water, and when I eased my way past my sofa, I flinched at the state of my hall. It wasn’t so terrible—just the carpet and the floor, the door frames and the skirting boards—but it was going to take time and money and probably an insurance claim to fix. And the insurance claim would likely entail telephone calls, and telephone calls meant being treated like an idiot and, and, and—
And if I managed it properly, I could fit some basic flood proofing at the same time.
Water-resistant wood for the doorways. Perhaps a stone floor, like Mrs. P.
I drew in a sharp breath, a little dizzy suddenly. Because there it was.
This was what the future felt like.
I stared at the mess, expecting to be…frightened or sad or helpless or overwhelmed.
But I wasn’t. I wasn’t.
I pulled on my coat and my scarf and my wellies. Stepped carefully down the hall and over my sandbags. I waved to Mrs. P as I waded past her living room window and made my way up to the top of the street, where the water levels were highest. There were several pumps lined up by the side of the road, and most of the houses here stood with their windows wide, and their doors ajar, thick cables trailing out of them, carrying the water away. Adam’s team were hard at work, flashes of yellow and orange amid the grey and brown.
