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CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

When someone did you a favor, you ought to be properly appreciative.

Thank-you notes were out of style, but Madeleine had been raised to send them, and the Daughters of Grace had taught their students the same.

She’d sent a few on Haera’s behalf, until Haera found out and insisted on writing them herself, in her own personal style.

Madeleine’s favorite was:

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Darrow,

Thank you for the flowers you sent.

Jonathan didn’t like lilies but I do.

They look pretty in the house.

Thank you also for not acting as if I am strange because of everything that happened and for being nice to me even though he’s dead.

Sincerely,

Haera North

“North,” Madeleine had belatedly learned, was the surname Jonathan and Haera had invented when he’d cadged the birth certificate from Jorsay’s registrar.

She’d assumed it was Rendall, but it wouldn’t make sense for Haera to have Jonathan’s last name since she’d supposedly been born without his knowledge.

When Madeleine had asked Haera about the choice of name, she’d said, “I come from the North Sea. We weren’t very imaginative.”

Imaginative or not, now that the first shock had worn off, Haera seemed determined to adapt to her new circumstances.

If that included writing thank-you notes, she’d do it.

She was gritting her teeth and learning how to be human as best she could, her ability to understand whale song notwithstanding.

For example, she’d asked Madeleine for a declaration of love instead of stating it as a fait accompli .

Madeleine sighed as she biked into the village.

Last night, Haera had asked her to figure out what she wanted.

She’d promised to do it today.

In the light of morning, that seemed a little hasty.

Why hadn’t she asked for a little more time?

There were nearly two weeks left before she had to leave.

She did have to leave.

She needed money to live, and obtaining a work visa didn’t seem easy.

Orkney had no teacher shortage.

Haera would have to get a sponsor license to hire Madeleine to work on ?tlaquoy, and that didn’t feel right.

Whatever the job was, Madeleine wasn’t ready to move to a new country on a moment’s notice after the most tumultuous season of her existence.

No matter how beautiful Haera was in the middle of the night.

No matter how incomplete Madeleine felt without her embrace.

They had to be sensible, didn’t they?

She groaned as she reached her destination.

She’d gotten into better shape after over a month of working on a farm, but her thighs still burned from a long bike ride.

It was just past ten in the morning, and the Sunrise Café was open for business.

Madeleine hadn’t been here since she and Haera had stopped by after their pledge on the beach.

She hadn’t been avoiding the place, exactly.

It wasn’t a crime not to patronize a restaurant, and she’d made up for her earlier mistake, so everything was squared away.

Except it wasn’t.

Sending a thank-you note for their gift would have been enough.

And yet, Madeleine found herself here in person to extend her gratitude.

Was this what they called “full circle”?

The bell jangled when she opened the door, and Arjun looked up from the register.

She’d timed her visit to avoid a morning rush, and the café was otherwise empty.

An audience would make things awkward.

“Good morning,” Madeleine said shyly.

He smiled. “Hello there. No need to hover in the doorway.”

“Right, right.” Madeleine slipped into the café, face hot.

“What can I get for you?”

Her planned words deserted her.

While she struggled to find them, Madeleine glanced at a nearby corkboard, papered with notices for events all over Orkney: music performances, livestock exhibits, art classes.

Haera could go to all of those things if she wanted, after Madeleine was gone.

Madeleine cleared her throat.

“Ah, actually, is”—she was going to say Jeremy —“your husband here too?”

At the word husband, so bald and bold, her spine tingled.

She kept looking Arjun in the eyes.

Hopefully her smile didn’t look forced or weird.

“Sure,” Arjun said cheerfully, so it must not have.

“Oi, love! Visitor!”

Love, somehow, seemed even balder and bolder.

And more beautiful. Madeleine’s face must be tomato-red now.

Jeremy emerged from the back, wiping down a wet carafe.

“Visitor?”

“The lady from New Orleans.” Arjun raised his eyebrows at Madeleine.

“Stopped by here a few weeks ago with a friend.”

Jeremy’s expression said he needed no reminding—that he remembered perfectly well who she was, after she’d snubbed him once and made a veiled apology later.

If Haera were here, she’d stride confidently up to the counter and just start talking.

Madeleine could take a page from her book.

She threw back her shoulders and walked forward.

“I wanted to thank you for the food you sent to that same friend,” she said.

“After Jonathan Rendall died.”

Any amusement in Arjun’s eyes faded into sympathy.

“Poor old fellow. Never did meet him, but everyone was talking about it.”

Haera would have asked, If you never met him, why did you send us food?

Madeleine had to put her own spin on it.

“It was kind of you to send those rolls when you didn’t know him. Or Haera, really.”

“Arjun said she made quite an impression,” Jeremy said dryly, and added, “Oof” when Arjun elbowed him.

“She usually does.” Was Madeleine blushing again?

“Anyway, I just…wanted to stop by and say thank you. It meant a lot.” She bit her lip.

Hoped they’d hear what she was actually saying.

Arjun and Jeremy looked at each other.

Somewhat to Madeleine’s dismay, Jeremy leaned forward and rested his elbows on the countertop.

“So,” he said, in the manner of a man with something on his mind.

“Jer,” Arjun said warningly.

“No, no. I come in peace.” He raised one hand, as if to prove it.

“Just seems as if there’s unfinished business, and I hear you’re leaving soon.”

Madeleine’s shoulders slumped.

“Does everyone talk about everything here?”

“Not everything,” Jeremy replied.

“There’s certain things they’re remarkably close-mouthed about. At least to us outsiders. I’m sure they’re nattering nonstop to each other.” He tilted his head to the side.

“It takes a while to be accepted in a place like this, but you seem to have managed it much faster than we have.”

“I don’t think so,” Madeleine hedged.

“Everyone’s been really nice, but I think it’s different when you’re just visiting.”

“Dunno about that.” Arjun leaned back against the coffee bar and crossed his arms. “You moved in with one of the islanders and started working his farm. Took up with his daughter, they say. Everyone talks about you as if you’re one of them already. Then they stop talking if we get too close.”

She almost said I’m sorry , but she wasn’t responsible for other people’s behavior, even when it involved her.

“I don’t know what’s up with that, but it’s too bad they haven’t made you feel welcome.”

“We’re not unwelcome, exactly,” Jeremy said.

“Just held at arm’s length. At first we wondered if it was because we’re gay, but given how the villagers have taken to you two, I reckon that’s not it.”

Having laid down the gauntlet, he returned to drying the carafe.

Madeleine had completed her errand, and she’d be within her rights to march out of here and never come back.

She could tell them to mind their own business, for good measure.

She didn’t owe anyone any explanations.

She’d also never had other gay people to talk to before, and she still wasn’t used to thinking other , applying the word to herself as well.

“The first day I was here, I didn’t behave well,” she said carefully.

“I think you remember.”

Arjun nodded while Jeremy replaced the carafe.

“I was working through some issues. When Haera and I came here, Jeremy, Arjun implied you’d done something similar.”

Jeremy sent a startled look to Arjun, who shrugged and said, “You thought you were straight until you were twenty-six.”

Ah, discovering yourself at the ancient age of twenty-six.

They couldn’t be out of their early thirties now.

Madeleine said dryly, “These things are relative.”

“Sounds like,” Jeremy said.

“Heard you used to be a nun.”

Madeleine raised her eyebrows.

“Harry Duggan stopped by,” he admitted.

“Seems you’ve got a story. Things’ll be quiet until the lunch rush.” He tilted his head in invitation.

Apparently a conversation was happening.

It should happen. She was long overdue for a conversation like this.

“Can I get a cup of coffee first?”

Arjun turned to the cash register.

“I was hoping you’d ask.”

Minutes later, they sat at one of the little tables, both men glancing at the door in case a customer came in.

Madeleine’s heart remained curiously steady as she recounted her story.

It was the expurgated version: she said years ago she’d had an “encounter” with a woman that showed her she needed to leave the Daughters of Grace, but not how or where.

She said she’d returned to Jorsay because she’d liked it on the field trip, leaving out the part about seeking answers.

And she said she’d met Haera, and everything had changed, omitting the little fact of Haera’s supernatural origins.

There was such a thing as too much detail.

Becca knew a version of this, but telling it to other gay people felt different: as if she didn’t have to explain or excuse anything.

By the end, they were nodding along and making sympathetic sounds.

They understood.

Halfway through her story, Arjun had taken Jeremy’s hand.

Madeleine fought not to stare at it.

The air on her palm suddenly became lack; Haera’s hand should be there instead.

The coffee was nearly cool by now, but a sip steadied her.

“Anyway, that’s the story of a stranger. Thanks for listening to it.”

“I like these sorts of stories,” Jeremy said.

“Reminds me I’m not thick for not figuring myself out during puberty like some people here.”

“Love,” Arjun said gently.

Love, Madeleine thought, and Haera’s smile flashed in her memory.

“We wondered if you and she would come back. I reckon she’s busy taking care of loads of things.”

Or walking around the farm, or diving into work, or staring off into space.

How could Madeleine leave her now?

She looked down at the table.

“Yes. Lots to do after a death.”

“You’ve been helping her? That’s kind.”

Madeleine moistened her lips.

“It’s what people should do for each other.”

Neither replied.

When she looked up, they were regarding her with identically raised eyebrows.

How long did it take before spouses had the exact same mannerisms?

“Sure,” Arjun said. “Takes a village and all. But you’re leaving? How’s that going to work?”

It isn’t.

It’s not going to work.

I have to leave her, and I can’t bear it.

I don’t know how it can work.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean are you going to try an LDR?” Arjun said.

At Madeleine’s blank look, he said, “Long-distance relationship. Jeremy’s company moved him to Edinburgh, and it was almost six months before I could follow him, but we managed. Still, I suppose your circumstances are different…”

“And they say Harry Duggan’s the nosy one,” Jeremy said.

“What? At least I ask, instead of poking about for a confession like the bloody police. Madeleine? Are you all right?”

Her hands were stiff around her coffee mug.

She must have the strangest look on her face, but that was fitting when an obvious solution landed in front of an oblivious person.

Haera hadn’t mentioned an “LDR” either, so at least she wasn’t the only one.

Unless Haera had, in fact, thought of it, and hadn’t said anything, because she didn’t like the idea.

There was a lot to dislike about it.

It would be incredibly difficult.

But the Gospel of Matthew said, “With God all things are possible.”

God might be chancier than before, but possibility seemed bigger than ever.

“I’m fine,” she said.

“I have a lot to think about. That’s all.”