Chapter 10
Chapter ten
Afternoon light slips through the window, dust hanging in the air. I stand at the mirror and straighten my sleeves. The cottage isn’t mine yet, not really, but I’ve unpacked enough to fake it. A mug by the sink, records stacked, books out of their boxes; small signs of life finding its shape.
My phone buzzes. Mum.
‘Hey, Mum.’
‘Hi, sweetheart. Dad’s here.’
Dad always is when things tilt. He puts the speaker on too early and breathes like he’s testing the line.
‘Hey, Dad.’
‘How are you feeling today?’ Mum asks.
‘Alright. A bit weird. I’ll be fine.’ It’s true enough.
‘Sorry we can’t be there, mate,’ Dad exhales. He hates missing things. Hates feeling useless more.
‘It’s okay. Last minute.’
‘We love you. Let us know how it goes,’ Mum adds.
‘We’ll be thinking of you,’ Dad says. Like a promise he can keep from anywhere.
‘Love you, too.’
I end the call and set the phone down, staring at the blank screen until it fades to black.
They mean well. They always do. But they don’t get this part—what it’s like to be the one holding what’s left of all the pieces.
Still, their voices steadied me. A reminder that I’m not completely on my own, even if I have to do this part alone.
I smooth my shirt, no elbow holes, per Carol’s request, and check the buttons again. The envelope she left sits on the dresser. I slide it into my coat pocket. Not because I’ll need it. But because she was usually right.
I walk the short distance to The Mossy Pint. A couple of neighbours talk at their fences, voices low. Heads tip as I pass. Almost everyone I walk past is wearing bright skirts, loud scarves or prints that don’t match. There is no one in black.
Carol wouldn’t have wanted black or darkness.
By the time I reach the door, the windows glow amber. The pub looks warmer than I remember. Door’s propped open, music drifting out, soft and folky—not sad.
Inside, the tables are pushed back. Paper cranes and pressed leaves hang from the rafters on twine. The bar’s lined with mismatched teacups—Carol’s collection. Handwritten cards sit in front of some: first cup poured the day she opened. The one she cracked and glued with book paste.
The sight stops me cold. All this effort for her, for the life she built here. I feel proud. Sad, but proud. The ache that reminds you they were someone worth missing, and the warmth that makes you believe they’re not gone—just changed form.
Ezra’s at the door with a tea towel over his shoulder, sleeves shoved up. He clocks me and nods. ‘Mic’s set if you want it,’ he tells me, voice low. ‘No pressure.’
‘Later, maybe,’ I say. ‘I’ll listen first.’
‘Good.’ He squeezes my shoulder once and moves on. ‘There’re drinks out. Take what you need.’
Walking over to grab a beer, I take it all in.
This is Carol—it’s perfect. I swallow. The back wall’s a patchwork of black-and-white, sepia, and sun-faded colour.
Her wedding. A pack of kids in the 80s holding books over their heads.
Carol behind the counter at Turn the Page, ink on her hands.
One of us, too; I’m sixteen, hair too long, trying not to smile and she’s beaming like she’s just won a prize.
My stomach folds. For a long time, I thought losing her would hollow this place out.
But standing here, it feels full, like she never really left.
‘Figured I’d find you staring at that one,’ Jasper says, sliding in beside me with a cider. ‘You look twelve.’
‘Still feel twelve.’
‘She always said you had an old soul and you’d grow into it.’ He bumps my elbow. ‘Reckon you’re getting there.’
I nod, not trusting my voice.
A low voice carries over the room, not on a mic, just steady enough to quiet the hum.
Ezra. ‘Carol left instructions,’ he says. ‘Of course she did. She wanted colour, stories, and lemon cake with bad wine. Celebrate and definitely, no eulogy.’
A choked laugh from somewhere near the bar causes shoulders to loosen.
‘She also said,’ he checks a folded card, ‘“you can cry if you want, but not for long—too many books left to read.” I’ve dug out her favourite bottle. Help yourselves.’
Warmth moves through the room like someone’s opened a window. Conversations shift, settle, and then the stories start. A kid from the local high school talks about the paperbacks she used to sneak him under the counter, ones she said would, “teach him more about people than algebra ever could.”
A woman from the gallery, tells how Carol always knew what you needed before you did. How she once handed her a copy of The Bell Jar and said, “You’re not broken, you’re just seeing the cracks early.”
Then someone laughs, remembering the council meeting. Carol in that faded “read banned books, fight boredom” tee, marching in with a box of used paperbacks and daring them to prove they’d read a single one.
Every story pulls the same thread of mischief, kindness, defiance, all woven together. Listening, I feel the ache rise, sharp and full, but underneath there’s something steadier. Pride, maybe. Or relief, that she wasn’t just mine to miss. That the town loved her too, in all the ways I did.
Jasper leans in. ‘You going to say something?’
‘Not today.’ What would I even say? Sorry I didn’t call more? Sorry I wish there was more time?
The pub hums with uneven laughter, the clink of cutlery, and a few quiet sobs. Grief looks different on everyone: lemon cake crumbs, wine stains, tired eyes. You can feel grief moving through the room, drifting like smoke, brushing against everyone.
For once, that feels like enough.
The cool air hits as I walk outside and I think of her line: The town hums when the right people listen.
I close my eyes and try to hear it.
I step back into the room and catch a corner booth. Four women sit under the fairy lights, heads together like their own small weather system. The brunette in the worn cardigan, laughs at something the blonde says. She doesn’t bother to be quiet, and the sound cuts clean through the fog in my head.
It takes me a second to place her. When I stopped for coffee that afternoon, she was the one who’d been moving the boxes out of the car.
She had the same no-fuss focus now. She listens hard, then tips her head back and laughs again.
There’s a pen mark along one finger and a band-aid on her knuckle.
Something in my chest stands down a notch.
‘Ready to head out?’ Jasper interrupts at my shoulder.
‘In a sec.’ She doesn’t see me. Good. Tonight isn’t about introductions.
I fold the moment away and turn for the door.
A woman with silver threaded through dark hair, steps into my path, with kind eyes, and a steady voice. ‘You must be Lucas.’
‘That obvious?’ I laugh nervously.
She smiles. ‘I’m Nettie, from Brew & Bloom, across from the shop. Carol talked about you.’ She gave a light squeeze to my forearm, grounding me. There was no pity. ‘If you need a table where no one asks anything, come by. First coffee’s on me.’
‘Thank you.’
‘She believed in this town,’ Nettie adds, softer. ‘In what happens at shared tables. You don’t have to know what’s next. Just take the next step.’
She’s gone a breath later, back into the colour and noise. I glance once more at the booth. The brunette tips her head back in another laugh. I don’t move towards her.
‘Alright,’ I say to Jasper. ‘Let’s go.’
Lilah
I stay close to the girls most of the night, our shoulders brushing and voices quiet. The pub smells like lemon cake and nostalgia, that wraps itself around your ribs without asking permission.
I didn't expect to feel so much. But there is something about the way people spoke her name, like it is a bookmark in their lives.
The sight of her mismatched teacups, and the paper cranes swaying in the rafters, creating nostalgia.
I hadn't known Carol well, not really. But I feel her here in every soft laugh, every tear caught before it fell.
And then I see him.
Across the room, just stepping back inside.
Jacket collar crooked, eyes sweeping the space like he is trying to remember it all.
There is something familiar in the way he held himself, like someone used to slipping between the pages instead of standing in the spotlight.
For a moment, without knowing his name, I wondered if we were doing the same thing, just trying to figure out where the story goes from here.
Journal Entry - Sunday, 10th of August
There’s something about seeing a room full of people carry someone’s memory like a shared secret. Tonight, didn’t feel like an ending, not really. More like a comma in the middle of a sentence you don’t want to finish yet.
I didn’t know Carol the way some people here did.
But I feel her in the colour, in the quiet kindness, in the stories passed hand to hand like heirlooms. And then there is him, I don’t know who he is, but something about the way he watched the room, like it meant something, made me feel less alone in mine.
Maybe that’s how stories begin. Not with fireworks, just a look.
xx