Chapter 11
11
JOE
I drive away from Glynn Harber with Isaac in my rearview mirror, but I don’t head home to the city.
I don’t even make it as far as that harbourside pub to book a room for a third night in a row. I only get as far as the nearest village shop, where I purchase something I present at what I hope is my final stop of the evening.
The Rectory front door swings open, and I hold out a bottle of gin. “You said there might be room at your inn?”
Charles is delighted. More about the company than the alcohol, I think, which he confirms. “I can’t actually be drunk in charge of minors while Hugo is on parish business, but you can. Come on. I’m pretty sure I can chip some ice out of the freezer. Maybe even find a lemon.” He tiptoes down a toy-strewn hallway, then checks the baby monitor in the kitchen. “They’re all out for the count, thank goodness.” The same dishes from our shared supper are still by the sink, the same chaos of food plastered to a pair of highchairs. I turn down gin and accept tea, which Charles makes while I get busy loading the dishwasher.
“Oh, you can come again, Mr. Helpful.”
Right now, I want to, even before I’ve made it home from Cornwall.
But without Noah’s cooperation, I won’t have a reason to revisit.
I’m pretty sure he’s figured out who I am after that storytelling session. But him meeting with me has to be his decision. I can’t make that happen, especially if stress leads to shutdowns on his learning like several of his teachers have told me, so I rinse dishes at a kitchen sink with a view over a night-dark garden while Charles gets busy restoring order out of chaos. I have no idea that he’s stopped until his reflection joins mine in the kitchen window. “What can you see?”
Not much from this perspective. Just myself, frowning hard enough to be mistaken for my brother. Or my father.
What I actually want to see is more of Isaac.
Charles peers, searching this view of a nighttime garden. “Must be something pretty compelling.”
Isaac is. Always has been. From the very first night I told him that he’d have to press pause on life as he knew it to now.
He stopped pressing pause long ago without me, and I wish I’d been around to see that progress. It’s…
Impressive.
It’s that plain and simple. I’m so fucking impressed with everything about him. With what he shared in a school library to what he’s done for other families back in London. He’s kept himself busy, all while I was doing the same to piece together a new role, but I don’t actually need to give an answer. Charles fills the silence with a list of wildlife I might see through this window if I stayed for longer. “You’d be welcome.”
Hugo repeats that invitation when he gets back, limping harder than when I first met him, tired after a day of double duty for students and a village parish, but he’s still ready to pick up from where we left off.
I didn’t know how much I’d missed this kind of exchange, this to-and-fro of stories that leads to professional suggestions, until he makes a final one outside a guest bedroom. “Let me talk with our Forest School teacher. Hayden is close friends with the Luxtons. If he vouches for you, I’m sure they’d be more amenable to encouraging Noah to accept your help.”
My brother is the opposite of amenable once I’m settled in this Rectory bedroom. Less than a minute after I press Send on a text message postponing the return of the car, he’s a wasp buzzing in my ear.
“You’re staying down there?” I don’t need to see his face on my phone screen to picture his suspicion. “Why?” He jumps to the wrong conclusion faster than I can tell him my motivator. Not that I’d share why my blood still hums in my veins, my chest aching—in a good way for once—every time I replay Isaac asking me to stick around for longer. To be his guest at a celebration where he won’t have a single friend but me or any family members but Lenny.
Josh wouldn’t want to hear what Isaac did for me with that invitation, even if I told him. He’s in one-track mode like usual. “Because you talked the Emerson kid into giving up the goods before a judge orders him back here to do it?”
If that red-haired farmer I met is right, there are no goods for Noah to give up, no additional evidence to help the case for the prosecution. Plus, a judge isn’t going to compel him to revisit London in person once they take my reports and Noah’s potential diagnosis into consideration. My laptop is full of accounts Hugo gathered for me that paint a picture of more harm if Noah has to face who hurt him, so I draw a firm line. “I’m invoking rule one. Not talking to you about work now or ever. Besides, knife crime isn’t even in your wheelhouse, is it? Thought digital forensics was all about money laundering? About tracking down cash.” I frown so hard I bet I look just like him. “How did you even come across his case?”
Josh snorts. “So much for rule one.” He does mutter, “Wintergreen, innit?” and I get it. Like him, I can’t help paying attention whenever I hear bad news from our old doorstep. “But that’s really why you’re staying down there for longer? To meet with him?”
“With Noah? That’s doubtful.” All he’s shown me so far is mistrust. Even mistook me for being a cop. And he’s shown that he’s conflicted. I saw plenty of that across a library table each time Isaac said I was a good guy instead of bad news.
I hear the same conflict now from Josh. “Then why the fuck do you want to stay in Cornwall? There’s nothing for you down there.”
Josh can’t see what I can from the second storey of this building, starting with stars that sparkle over moorland. The moon gets in on the action, hanging low over distant glinting water. It’s so fucking pretty I’m tempted to tell Josh to head down here in a hurry.
We could have a night swim together, like we used to.
Thank fuck I didn’t voice that suggestion. He’s as abrupt as ever.
“When will you be back?”
“When I’m done.” Something about his insistence registers. “Why?” I aim for joking. “Anyone would think you’re desperate to catch up with m?—”
“I need the car.”
Of course, the car is his only reason. I must pause for so long that he rephrases, and I wouldn’t say that his wasp buzz gentles but there is less sting to this. “I’ve been called in to consult on a case upcountry. Could stretch over a few days. Maybe all week. Don’t want to?—”
“Take the train?”
“It isn’t that. I…” I hear him swallow. “I don’t want to leave Meera on her own for that long.” He’s back to grumpy, but I know this gruffness.
Know it?
I hear an echo of myself ordering Isaac to let the school below this window take care of him. Now my brother virtually admits that what he needs most is for someone special to be cared for in his absence. “Thought you could look in on her after work every evening. You don’t have to paint the nursery. I’ll ask Dad to help me with it.”
Being excluded from that painting party stings. I try to brush it off, like usual—need to, if I’m gonna keep our line of communication open.
Tonight, doing that is hard. Maybe it’s the contrast with Isaac making me feel wanted, and not only by getting me off in a hot and sweaty hurry. I’ve had plenty of dark encounters, but I can also count on one hand how many of those came with an invitation to meet again in daylight.
“You still there?”
“Yeah.” I am. I’m also tempted to find a reason to stay for even longer and let Josh get the train like I have so often rather than demand fifty-fifty access to the vehicle we own jointly. My brother sucks that wind from my sails with a four-word sentence.
“Meera had a fall.” He quickly adds, “She’s okay. Baby boy is okay too.”
Josh isn’t. My super-computer brother isn’t programmed for emotion. Tonight, I hear plenty. “Can’t lie, getting that call scared me shitless all over again.”
“Again?”
He brushes that off without an answer, back to his usual bulldozer. “I tried to postpone consulting on this case. No dice.” He huffs out a long breath. “I’d feel better if she had company. And if I had the car to get back quickly if I needed to. She asked me to call you.”
Meera wanting me around gets to me. “Tell her I’ll come, no worries.”
“Tomorrow, yeah? By lunchtime.”
“Won’t be that early.” I’ve got a time capsule lunch date I’m not breaking for anybody. “I should be back by evening.”
“Yeah?” I hear actual relief then, and I get to see more of that the next morning.
First, Charles shows me plenty when I help wrangle his temporary twins through their breakfast. Then from Hugo, when I return last night’s favour by talking through strategies that have worked for me with challenging students.
Finally, I see relief from Isaac, who spots me arriving at the celebration before his brother notices that he won’t have to be the only kid here without friends or family.
There are plenty of those guests here for other students. Parents have gathered to witness their kids bury the past and move on. Grandparents, aunts, and uncles have happy reunions with boarding students while family friends take photos.
Only Isaac stands alone with his brother, his hands on Lenny’s narrow shoulders, and I know that isolated feeling all too well.
It’s another golden Cornish moment. Another crystal clear day. There’s no missing what else I notice as soon as Isaac sees me.
Regret.
Because he’s changed his mind about me, I guess. His head tilt towards the library window says so, telling me to wait where Lenny can’t see me.
That’s where I wait for him to let me down gently. I don’t know why I’m gutted. It’s only what I more than half expected. Of course he wants me to keep my distance.
Only that isn’t what Isaac tells me when he joins me in the library.
He lets himself in, then gets in my space, and from this close, I see desperation.
“Len hasn’t spoken once since people started arriving. All those families…” He shakes his head, a hand shoved through his hair, and fuck it, I untangle him and thread us together. Our fingers, I mean, which could be too much, or too soon for this kind of closeness outside of a one-off hookup. It doesn’t feel so to me, but I’ve had a year with an Isaac-shaped puzzle piece missing from my life, and him finding my other hand suggests he likes how we slot together. There’s no way I’d fight off him weaving us even closer like this, especially when it comes with him sharing what has added to Lenny’s upset.
“Mum usually video calls every week. Since she got moved, that hasn’t happened. Our visits have been fucked up too. He hasn’t seen her for ages, and this morning… Seeing all the parents here… It’s the first time he’s cried about it.” His jaw clenches, then releases along with a flow of honesty that guts me for a whole new reason. “I finally managed to request a visit in a few weeks’ time. Still waiting to hear, but Mum emailed, saying she wasn’t sure if I should bring Len with me.”
“Did she say why?”
“No, but I can guess. She must have had news about her case that she doesn’t want him to hear.” He shows me what torture looks like, an unexpected flashback to Josh beside my bed in a burns unit, then to Isaac during that interview when he said his Mum could face a life sentence. “How the fuck do I leave him behind, Joe?”
This isn’t the time to state what I can just about glimpse from this angle—Lenny is at a courtyard table hemmed in by a headmaster and a school padre. He couldn’t be in safer hands, but Isaac isn’t in a place to hear that.
He does hear this, and I’m so fucking glad for my lack of filter.
“I’d keep him company any time you need, mate. You get a visit date, I’ll keep it free for him. For you both, no worries. Here or there.” This is what I spent last night thinking in a quiet Rectory bedroom. The same stars I saw outside that window are in Isaac’s eyes as soon as I say, “The distance doesn’t matter. I’d make it happen. Make it work for both of you.”
His fingers tighten around mine. “Yeah?”
“Yes. Trust me.”
Just like that, we’re kissing, and it’s even better than last night.
This contact isn’t desperate. Doesn’t feel like a goodbye at all, even if I’ll need to say one later. I can’t help repeating, “I’ll make it work.”
I’m so fucking invested in being the reason for this kind of smile on Isaac. For this shaky laugh and for a second kiss that he smiles through, and that smile only fades when he brings his brother back to the library to meet me.
A pin dropping would be loud compared to Lenny’s silence. That sweet smile, so like his big brother’s, beams first, then splinters.
He runs.
To me.
Then fights off his brother to yank at my sleeves.
“It’s okay. Let him see for himself.” I go down on my knees to let little fingers trace ropes and divots, and there aren’t too many people who’d want to do that—who’d see these marks as useful. As proof, I guess, of someone who disappeared out of his life and never looked back. “It’s me, mate.”
I get a smile at that, even if it’s watery. I also get a hard shove to my chest, which Isaac lurches to stop, only to retreat as his brother takes out the emotional equivalent of four seasons in one day on me.
I saw summer in the library doorway, bright and brilliant, he was so surprised and pleased to see me. That’s what I used to witness on my school visits—Lenny turning like a flower to follow warming sunshine. I was that for him once, a daily presence when his world upended, missing a special person.
Summer fades to autumn as soon as Lenny’s brain catches up with his heart. This storm of tears comes with what I know is a rare shout from him.
“You wrote, See you soon .”
These balled fists thump out the same desperation Isaac showed me on a beach, the same rage he had to face the world with for his brother. From him, it was impressive. From Lenny, it smashes my heart into jagged pieces.
“This is not soon.”
“I know, mate. I’m sorry. I came as soon as I could.”
He’s in my arms then, and I get to rock him.
I also get to see that we’re skipping winter for spring—it’s right there after I pull back far enough to see Isaac’s own smile. I aim this at his brother, who hasn’t let go yet, but it’s Isaac I watch, that I soak up, that I’m nowhere close to done with. “It’s so good to see you. What have you been up to?”
Lenny’s as right as rain then, or he might seem that way to anyone who hasn’t been around kids who’ve been through an emotional wringer. His tight grip on my hand is one clue. So is him clutching Isaac’s hand with his other and not letting go when we head outside to a bench where the padre meets us.
Hugo’s gaze locks on Lenny’s tight handhold, and his tone is gentle. “Can I borrow your big brother for a few minutes? There are some people here who want to meet him.”
For a second time in minutes, Lenny’s eyes well. His knuckles whiten around both his brother’s hand and mine, and I can guess what he heard—Isaac’s leaving.
Lenny’s brother is an old hand at reading silent terror. He drops to his knees. “Joe’s here.” His quick flash of a glance asks a separate question.
Stay?
I nod, and he continues.
“He isn’t going anywhere. I’m not going far either. Only over there.” He nods towards a group at the far end of the courtyard. “I need to say hello to people I might work with if we stay here.”
A little blond kid at this table eavesdrops. “You’re staying?” He’s happy about that. He also shoves an envelope Lenny’s way. “Quick. Put one of your pictures in here. Pick your best one.”
Lenny sniffs back tears, and if that isn’t a sign that Isaac’s done a fucking amazing job of working on his resilience, I don’t know what is. Yes, Lenny hasn’t said a word since leaving the library, but he is interested instead of withdrawn, and that’s half the battle won already. His raised eyebrows ask, “Why?” as clearly as if he’d said it.
“Because you haven’t put one in yet, but every Glynn Harber kid gets to.” His friend points to where children post their own envelopes, like Noah offered to do yesterday for Isaac, and that’s who my gaze snags on.
Across the courtyard, Noah frowns, as unhappy to see me as ever.
Or maybe him taking a few steps my way then backing off in a hurry means he’s conflicted, which I’d mention to Hugo if he weren’t busy leading Isaac away to make introductions.
Isaac looks back, eyes issuing a request I can read with zero trouble.
Don’t leave.
I didn’t want to the first time. Did it because I had to. Leave Lenny again now?
I won’t.
Not until it’s time to say goodbye to Cornwall.