Page 44

“Have a seat,” he says, still not looking at me.
I sit at the table. He puts mugs out for tea. Takes out tea bags. I don’t bother to tell him I don’t like tea. At this rate, by the end ofthe week I’ll have acquired the taste. The kettle whistles. He doesn’t move.
“Dev? The kettle?”
“What? Oh, right.”
He pours the water.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“Yeah, I’m just worried about my mum.” He hands me a mug.
I put down my books and rest my arms on the edge of the table. It’s a little sticky. I lift my arm, and Dev pops up, gets a sponge, and wipes off the jam.
“Sorry. I had breakfast in a hurry. I was eager to get some time in the garden today before the rain.”
“It’s going to rain?”
“It’s England. It’s always going to rain.”
He sits opposite me. We lift our mugs of tea at the same time. His smile seems shy, but his gaze is steady. I look away.
“Tell me again how you came to bring my mum back from the bookshop?” he asks.
I describe the group of noisy tourists, all eager for Germaine’s attention.
“You were there shopping too?” He nods toward my books. I pick up the Melling School book.
“A nostalgia purchase. Boarding school in England was one of my earliest fantasies.”
“Consider yourself spared.”
“I went to the shop because Germaine wanted to talk to me. She’s convinced that my mother wanted to come here to find someone.”
“And you doubt that?”
I rub my finger on the rim of my mug.
“I think it’s unlikely.”
“Were you and your mother close?”
He speaks so tenderly that I’m reluctant to disappoint him. He’s one of the lucky ones, who was raised well and assumes others were too. I tell him the basics.
“She left when you were nine and never came back?” he asks.
A bird chirps. I turn toward the window as it lifts off, a flash of magenta under a black wing.
“She flitted in now and then, like unexpected sunshine. She’d bring gifts. Dolls, macramé kits, books. It was always a holiday with her, brief and beautiful. I loved it. And then she’d leave.” How strange. I don’t usually talk about that time. He must be a very good listener. “I started seeing her more three years ago after my grandmother died. But always on her terms and at her place in Florida. I didn’t have anyone else. But I can’t say we were close.”
“That must have been difficult for you.”
“It’s all I knew.”
I’ve always prided myself on how much I like being alone. Hanging out with friends, having the occasional fling—usually someone who fell into my path, like the guy who fixed my sump pump or the old crush I ran into at my college reunion. Preferably someone who didn’t like me too much (no flowers, thank you kindly) or ask a lot in return. But I don’t want Dev to think I was a sad, abandoned girl who grew up into a damaged woman.
“My grandmother raised me well. I was loved, and I loved her back.”