Chapter Ten #2
They walked toward the river, where a small inn overlooked the water, its windows fogged with warmth and candlelight. Inside, they found a table between the bar and the kitchen, a spot that captured both the scent of ale and roasting meat and vegetables.
The girls split a steak-and-ale pie. Rhys ordered fish and chips, and Cat did the same.
Conversation flowed easily, the way it did when no one was trying too hard.
Olivia chattered about her new hat, Jillian about the book she’d found, Rhys about an elderly patient of his who loved Christmas pudding too much for her own good.
Cat laughed more in that hour than she had in days, if not weeks. When the plates were cleared the girls begged for sticky toffee pudding, and Rhys agreed, since they’d been very good all day.
While the waiter cleared the remaining dinner dishes, Rhys leaned back in his chair and spoke quietly to Cat. “They are loving all the crafts and activities. It’s not something they normally do, but it’s been good for them.”
“It’s good for me too,” she answered. “We did these things when I was little, and I’m enjoying doing them with your daughters. I don’t expect the girls to ever make clove studded oranges again, but it’s fun for this year, since there is no TV—as Jillian frequently likes to remind me.”
“Jilly was not happy about that when we first arrived.”
“Poor Miss Pettigrew,” Cat said mournfully. “She really got the short end of the stick.”
Rhys’s straight teeth flashed as he smiled, and he nodded to the window. They all followed his gaze. Tiny, delicate snowflakes had begun to fall.
*
Back at the cottage everything was quiet and calm. Rhys had read a chapter to the girls then walked them upstairs to tuck them in. He’d returned earlier and was now at work, his pen making small scratching noises as he wrote.
Cat sat curled in the armchair near the fire, opposite Rhys. She’d wrapped one of the old wool blankets around her, her laptop balanced on her knees, a half-empty mug of tea beside her. On the screen, a job application form blinked patiently.
Tiredly, she rubbed her eyes and scrolled back to the beginning of the page.
Position: Adjunct Lecturer, Modern European History.
Location: Grand Rapids Community College, Michigan.
Start Date: January 15th
Her chest squeezed. January. Not long now.
She clicked into the next box—Cover Letter—and began to type.
Dear Professor Ellison,
I’m writing to apply for the position of adjunct lecturer in Modern European History. My graduate work at King’s College London focused on nineteenth-century transatlantic migration, and I am eager to bring both my academic training and teaching experience to your department.
The words came easily enough. They were the right ones—polite, professional, earnest. The kind that got people hired. But as she typed, her fingers felt heavy and she typed slower.
I am particularly passionate about helping students engage with history as a living subject, one that reveals the resilience and complexity of ordinary lives—
Cat stopped. Stared at the blinking cursor. Eyes grittier than they needed to be. Ordinary lives. Resilience. She smothered a laugh, the irony not lost on her.
She took a deep breath and forced herself to finish. After hitting send Cat gave herself a moment to sit and just center herself before starting another application: History Instructor—Lansing High School.
*
Rhys wasn’t getting as much done as he could have if he’d been alone, either working at the kitchen table or up in his room.
But he didn’t want to be alone. He liked sitting in here with Cat, the heat from the fire welcome after the chillier second floor.
It would be a cold night. He made a note to make sure the girls were well covered when he went to bed.
Until then, he tried to make progress on editing, but he was distracted, pleasantly so, by Cat.
This was, he realized, his favorite time of day. The cottage still, the girls tucked into bed, the fire warm and bright. And Cat sitting across from him, diligently working.
Nothing exciting was happening. Just two industrious people working, and yet it felt like so much more. He was at peace. And it wasn’t his reading material, or the editing of painfully dry chapters, that made him relax. It was her. Cat.
He flipped through several pages, but was no longer focused on the words, too busy soaking it all in. The evening. The fire. The sense of calm and order.
Content.
That was the word. He felt content in a way he hadn’t felt in months—possibly years. Not merely calm, not simply relieved, but quietly right inside his own skin.
With Cat he wasn’t lonely. He wasn’t thinking about tomorrow’s to-do list or the endless patient notes piling up in his inbox, waiting his return to London.
He wasn’t even thinking about navigating the future with Lyndsey, who’d expressed that custody might need to change, if she stayed with Roger, because there was a good chance they would move for a year or two to Taiwan where Roger’s media empire was based.
No, Rhys wasn’t thinking of any of it. Instead, he listened to the fire pop, and the faint sound Cat made when she reread something she’d written.
Now and again, she’d shift, stretching one foot out beneath the blanket, and each small movement tugged his attention, making him feel. And that it was okay to feel again.
For years, he’d smashed all emotion down, shoving need and want, pain, and confusion into little dark boxes that he buried even deeper.
He’d decided after the divorce to focus on his work and being a father.
That was it. He didn’t need a partner. He didn’t need romance.
He didn’t need. But it was all a lie. He most definitely did need, and he needed her.
Lovely Catriona, he thought, the corners of his mouth lifting. No one was a saint. He’d treated enough patients, observed enough human behavior, lived through enough marital strain to understand people’s limits.
But if anyone came close to sainthood…
He glanced over at her in her chair, her blanket wrapped around her shoulders, her long hair a tangled tumble much like Olivia’s.
Cat comes close.
Cat must have felt his stare, because she looked up suddenly, their eyes meeting across the firelit room. Her smile was small, warm, reassuring. It was the smile she gave the children to let them know she was there, watching. Protecting.
Something in him eased. The tightness he’d carried for years uncoiled in his chest, letting him breathe properly for the first time in he didn’t know how long. Since his divorce. Maybe even before.
“You doing okay?” he asked.
“Yes. And you?”
“Better than I imagined one week ago.”
Her cheeks turned rosy, and she ducked her head, but he knew she wasn’t unaware of him, just as he couldn’t shut her out. Nor did he want to.
This small cottage with the huge fir tree and the childlike decorations wasn’t heaven, but it came close … close enough to make him realize what he had been missing all these years.