Chapter 7 #2
She nods, matter-of-fact. ‘Like when I think about Mum. I’m sad but I’m also glad I’m thinking about her. Because if I stopped being sad it would mean I stopped remembering.’
I press my fingertips against the counter. I hold very still, which is not something I do well, but the alternative is folding in half in front of an eight-year-old, and I’m not going to do that. My throat aches. My eyes ache. I breathe.
‘Yeah,’ I say, when I can trust my voice. ‘Exactly like that.’
‘Dad says it gets easier. He’s wrong, though. It doesn’t get easier. You just get better at carrying it.’
I look at her – this small, serious person who knows too much about grief and hasn’t yet learned to hide it. The fact that she hasn’t learned to hide it might be the bravest thing I’ve seen all year.
‘That’s very wise, Maisie.’
‘Isla said that, actually. But I remembered it.’ She hops off the stool and approaches Chips, who has been watching her with great interest. ‘Can I take him for a walk? Just on the harbour. I’ll bring him back.’
‘Have you walked a dog before?’
‘I’ve walked Brynn’s dog.’
‘Brynn doesn’t have a dog.’
‘She did for one afternoon. It was a long story.’ She’s already reaching for the lead. ‘Please? I’ll be really careful. I won’t let him escape again.’
I should say no. She’s eight. Chips is still technically a stray. There are a hundred reasons this is a bad idea.
‘Stay where I can see you from the window,’ I say. ‘And if he pulls, you let go. Don’t let him drag you anywhere.’
Her glance between the tiny scrap of a terrier and me says it all really, but Maisie is too polite and too cute to be rude.
‘I won’t.’ She clips the lead to his collar with surprising competence. ‘Come on, Chips. I’m going to show you the boats.’
Chips looks at me, looks at Maisie, and apparently decides this is acceptable. They head out the door together, Maisie chattering away, Chips trotting at her side like he’s known her his whole life.
I watch them through the window – the small girl and the small dog, making their way along the harbour front in the afternoon sun – and something about the image makes me press my hand against my chest without meaning to.
It doesn’t get easier. You just get better at carrying it.
Eight years old.
I look at the fridge. Peter’s magnet. The cartoon penguin in a scarf, holding a cup of coffee. He bought it at a Christmas market, stuck it on the fridge with great ceremony, declared it the café’s official mascot.
I could take it down.
I straighten it, though. It was crooked. It’s been crooked for seven months and I’ve never fixed it, and now I press my thumb against it and leave it there, and that’s enough for today.
Tom arrives at closing time, which is so perfectly timed I suspect coordination with Dot’s surveillance network.
‘Heard you survived day one,’ he says, letting himself in. Chips immediately abandons his bed to greet him, tail wagging with an enthusiasm that borders on disloyal.
‘Traitor,’ I tell the dog.
‘He’s just being polite.’ Tom crouches to scratch Chips behind the ears, and the dog leans into his hand in a way that is frankly sycophantic.
Tom’s face when he’s with animals is different from his face the rest of the time.
Softer, unguarded, the dryness gone for a moment.
I’ve seen it a hundred times. I don’t know why I’m noticing it now.
‘How was it?’ he asks, standing.
‘Fine. Good. Exhausting in a way I’d forgotten.’ I’m cashing up, counting coins, keeping my hands busy. ‘Bill and Frankie came by. And Tilly. And Maisie.’
‘So the whole village knows you’re back.’
‘The whole village knew I was back before I’d unpacked my car. Dot has a network.’
‘Dot has several networks. She’s very organised.’ He moves to the counter and leans against it, arms folded. ‘Need help with anything?’
‘I’m nearly done.’
‘That’s not what I asked.’
I look up from the till. He’s leaning against the counter in the way he does – patient, steady, unhurried – and the golden glow of the lights I have hanging is doing something to his face, catching the line of his jaw, the slight shadow under his eyes.
He looks tired. I wonder if he’s been sleeping.
I wonder if he always looks this tired and I’ve just never noticed because I wasn’t looking, and then I wonder why I’m looking now, and then I stop wondering because that particular line of inquiry has a shape I’m not interested in examining.
‘The window in the back is stuck,’ I admit. ‘It’s been stuck for months. I keep meaning to fix it and then I don’t.’
‘Show me.’
I lead him to the back room where there are shelves of ingredients, the second fridge, and the big mixer I use for bread. The window, which overlooks the tiny herb garden, has been painted shut since at least last summer.
Tom examines it for approximately three seconds. ‘You need a knife. A blunt one.’
‘I have knives. Lots of knives. Are we talking cheese, butter or a bog-standard dinner knife?’
His lips tip in a curve. ‘Butter.’
I head back to the café, grab a butter knife and bring it back, watching as he tests it against his thumb, nods. The confidence of it – the way he just knows, the way he always just knows – is either reassuring or annoying. I can’t decide which.
‘Hold this open,’ he says, and shows me where to press.
We work in silence, him running the knife along the seal, me holding the frame steady.
His hands are close to mine on the wood.
Not touching. Just close. I find myself watching them – Tom’s hands, long fingers, neat nails, a small scar on his right thumb I’ve never noticed before.
He has a way of working that’s completely absorbed, completely still except for the movement itself, like everything else has been set aside.
‘You’re staring,’ he says, without looking up.
‘I’m supervising. It’s a legitimate management technique.’
He glances up, and for a second we’re very close in the narrow back room, his face level with mine because he’s leaning into the window frame, and there’s paint dust on his forearm and the evening light is coming through the glass at an angle that makes his eyes lighter than usual.
Something catches in my chest. Not a thought.
Not anything I could name. Just a catch, like fabric snagging on a nail.
The window gives with a reluctant crack. Tom pushes it open and the evening air rushes in, cool and salt-tinged, carrying the sound of the gulls and the harbour.
‘There,’ he says, satisfied. Straightening. The distance returns. ‘What else?’
‘That’s it.’
‘That’s not it. You have a list. You always have a list.’
‘I don’t always have a list.’
He just looks at me.
‘Fine.’ I retrieve the list from under the till. ‘The table by the door wobbles. The light in the bathroom flickers. The back door sticks when it’s humid. And before you say it – I know I should have fixed these before I left. I know.’
‘I wasn’t going to say that.’
‘What were you going to say?’
‘Give me twenty minutes.’
‘Tom, you don’t have to—’
‘Twenty minutes, Nina.’