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“Mm-hm, my brother Bobby and I were born and raised in the Bronx.” Trying to pretend she wasn’t, she studied Ling’s face at the mention of Bobby and didn’t know how to feel when she detected a deep pink flush creep across the other woman’s cheeks.

“He’s very impressive. Especially working with newborns. They’re so delicate. I heard him mention he and Zoe have a baby of their own?” Ling was looking down into her coffee cup.

“Yes, Everly. My niece is the cutest baby in the world, but you know I might be biased.” Vanessa took her phone out and showed her the screen capture. It was Everly, laughing about something like she’d just heard the funniest story ever. “It’s only been a few days away, but I miss her.”

Ling smiled at the photo with warmth. “She’s beautiful.” Her laughter was light, breezy, as Vanessa showed her another photo, this time of Everly’s scrunched face after tasting a lemon.

“Thank you. Although I guess I can’t take credit for how cute she is. What about you? Kids, nieces, nephews?”

“Oh no. I’ll have some, if that’s what Virgil wants. It’s all my parents talk about.” Her grin was quick, practiced. She took another sip of coffee. “I heard you’re an attorney at a very important firm. How long have you been practicing?”

“Three years. Not long. But it feels longer.” Vanessa shrugged, then smiled big. Like she was supposed to.

“Wow, only three years. You must work hard.”

“Hard enough, I guess,” Vanessa allowed.

“Hm. Marriage to a handsome man and a great career. Your family must be very proud of you.” Abruptly, Ling bit her bottom lip and stopped speaking.

Then she glanced at her watch and sat up straighter.

“Well. I need to get back to my office. I’m going to work-work-work and leave on time so I can get ready for our casino night.

” She stood up, leaned over for two kisses, one on each cheek, European style.

“We should exchange numbers. It would be great to see you if you ever come back to Montreal, or if I come to New York for work.”

“I’d like that.”

They did the exchange, and then Ling waved as she left.

Well, that was short and sweet. Vanessa stayed to finish her coffee and croissant at a leisurely pace, then left to wander on her own. The comments from Zoe and Ling had stirred up all the questions she’d been trying not to ask herself as the time sped by, the questions about marriage and work.

It was Thursday already. She had until Saturday to tell Santino she…she what? That they were going back to New York and signing? Or they were going home with each other, their marriage resurrected, polished off and shining like new?

And what about the trial? Was she going to do as she was told, trade in more of her soul for a tiny office with her name on the door? She hadn’t worked on trial prep since Santino showed up. It was troubling and maybe telling that she’d barely thought about it at all.

As she pondered her choices, she walked aimlessly, soaking in the music and the sights.

She hadn’t realized the direction she was going in until she saw the huge mural with the tag.

“Kanien’kehá:ka Love.” On impulse, she walked in, seeking a basket of stones to touch, the smell of sage and some books to cradle for comfort.

There was only one other customer in the back, sitting on a small wood stool with his back to her and tapping on a water drum with a stick. The proprietor came out at the sound of the tinkling, white abalone shell chimes near the door.

“Hi, hi,” she was saying. Then when she saw it was Vanessa, she exclaimed, “Oh, hey. You’re back. How are you enjoying Montreal? Where’s that big blondie of yours?”

“Out pretending he’s in the Grand Prix,” Vanessa said with a grin.

“Still around. So the sage didn’t work, eh?”

“No, he ain’t disappeared yet.”

“I think that means he’s a keeper,” the woman said with a wink. “By the way, my name’s Marcie. We didn’t do proper intros before.”

“I’m Vanessa.” She bent over the bowls full of stones next to the cash register and the bigger boxes below. One box was full of rose quartz, associated with healing, compassion, the heart chakra. Love. “I think I’mma need a whole bag of these.”

“Aw,” Marcie crooned, leaning on the counter with a soft smile. “Is it true what you said about youse getting a divorce? If it’s none of my business, just say so.”

Typically, Vanessa would shy away from discussing anything personal with a relative stranger. But Marcie’s open, warm expression and the tranquility of this shop were working on her. Maybe telling a stranger, who had no stake in her decision one way or another, was exactly the right thing to do.

“I’ve been trying, but something about him seems to keep sticking.

I had my reasons, and I thought they were justified at the time, but I’m starting to accept some of it was on me too.

I don’t know.” She hesitated, smoothing a large, heart-shaped pink crystal between her palms. “You said you’ve been married a while. ”

“Ohhh yeah. But please don’t ask me if there’s a trick or some kind of secret involved because there isn’t.

It’s just deciding that you can accept them when they’re trying their best and when they’re at their worst, and them deciding the same thing about you.

And then you take it from there.” Marcie shrugged, then held up a hand in warning.

“By the way, I have a disclaimer for you. I’m not a mystical Indian giving out spiritual wisdom passed down from the ancestors, okay?

” She laughed. “I’m just someone with a grumpy husband that bugs the crap out of me every chance he gets.

But I love him. And I know he loves me back. ”

“I wish you were mystical,” Vanessa said, feigning disappointment. “I also need work advice. My bosses are asking me to do something I really, really don’t want to do.”

“Damn, I don’t know…want some more sage?”

The man who’d been drumming in the back moved into her field of vision. “Sorry to bust in on your magical convo but I overheard, and I think you could use these. They’re freedom candles. Infused with boreal forest tree essences.”

She turned to look at the tall, thick mint-green candles he was holding out to her. She followed his brown hand up his arm to his tie-dye T-shirt and…

What. The.

“Oh, my God. Oh my God,” she whisper-squealed. Vanessa had to bite her lip to keep from shouting fandom nonsense at him. Then she composed herself and smoothed her hair behind her ear. “Thank you. What do freedom candles do exactly?”

Panthro, aka Theon Graham, shook the candles in her direction.

“Just what it sounds like. They free you from whatever’s locking you down, the things in your life that you don’t need anymore.

Symbolically speaking, you can do that with anything that burns.

Fire is cleansing like that. The infusion helps, too.

Every time I come to Montreal, I stop in here and Marcie hooks me up. ”

Keeping a tight rein on her impulse to embarrass herself by fangirling like a tween instead of a woman in her thirties, Vanessa took the candles from him with hands that surprisingly didn’t shake.

“Thank you. I know you must hear this all the time, but I just wanted to say that your music has helped me through so much. Three years ago, I was having a really tough time. Really tough. Things got better every time I played A Love Song for Loss . I didn’t skip a single track.”

“Damn, that means a lot,” Panthro said, shaking his head slowly with a grin on his bearded face.

“I was going through a breakup when I wrote it. It helped me too. That, and burning the fuck outta these candles every night.” The three of them laughed.

“They don’t make everything better instantly.

That’s a process. But I hope they help make your decision clearer.

And if that don’t work, ‘you might need therapy, therapy, therapyyyy’,” he sang in falsetto.

Vanessa laughed so hard at that she had to wipe tears off her face. He continued his new song. “’I was visiting a shop in Montreal…’.”

She and Marcie listened and nodded to his rhythm while he sang and played the drum. Afterward, she lingered a while longer talking with them, and then it was time for him to go.

“What are you going to do the rest of your time here in Montreal?” Marcie asked when it was just the two of them and a new customer who’d wandered in.

“We’re going to have a casino night. I’m not big on gambling, but my husband is a better.

” Vanessa paused, noting how easy it had been to revert to saying “my husband” when referring to Santino.

This time there was no sarcasm, no pretense for his sake.

Those words resonated and struck a deep chord that vibrated through her.

That’s who he was. Santino was her husband. The decision had just been made.

“Oh, you guys should go to the casino over on my reserve. It’s about a half hour drive or less. Really pretty. Plus, my cousin and my nephew work there. You’ll have a great time. It’s less crowded than the one here and they draw more poker players if he’s into that.”

“Thanks for the recommendation. And all this help,” Vanessa said, indicating her new purchases.

“Anytime. Come back for another visit. I want to hear how everything turned out,” Marcie whispered with a wink.

Leaving the shop with her candles and the heart-shaped rose quartz stone, she now knew what her answer was going to be to Santino’s question about their future.

In the meantime, she wanted to keep that in the vault for a little while longer.

Keep him on his toes and make him put in more of that delicious work to win her over.