But Skye didn’t flinch.
“Your mum used to come to the carols, too,” she said, softly. “She stood at the back and sang like she didn’t want to, and then on the last verse gave it her all.”
“Sounds like her.”
“She used to plait my hair in the school yard when my gran was too busy.”
“She told me once you had more patience than I did,” I said. “I’ve been thinking about that every time you untangle some tinsel.”
She looked down into the box. “Untangling is not the same as fixing.”
“It’s a start.”
Our eyes met over the box, and I wanted more than anything to reach out, to pull her close, and to see if we still could sing the same harmony together. Instead, I bent my head and pulled out another ornament and handed it to Skye.
We laughed over the ornaments as Skye hung them. A crocheted bell that had seen love and dust. A paper angel whose head was taped on. A unicorn I’d have bet a month’s wages came from the pub. A star shaped from foil sweet wrappers, a faded tartan bow. None of it matched. All of it was exactly right.
She hummed again, and I found myself sliding underher melody out of muscle memory, not loud, just there. Harmony was a trust fall. Before, she would have leaned into it without thinking. Now she stilled, then let it happen. The knot between my ribs loosened enough to breathe.
“You remember the Glasgow garage?” she asked.
“Which one?”
“The one where we rehearsed the week before the Dumfries gig. You left the amp at home because you were sure you could ‘coax tone’ out of the room.”
“It was a very tonal room.”
“It was a damp cave that smelled like cabbage.”
“You wrote the bridge toFive a.m.on the floor with your foot tapping in those worn Doc Martens,” I said, the memory unfolding itself. “We kept the foot tap in the demo. You can hear it if you know where to listen.”
“First time we figured out we could fight without breaking the song,” she said. “Second time was that pub in Perth. The one with the carpet that made everyone’s feet stick.”
“‘Stickier than sin,’” I recited, because her gran had said it once and we’d used it in a song. “You sang like the ceiling was listening.”
“The ceiling was listening because it was falling,” she said, and the smile she gave me then belonged to the girl who once dared me to busk a busy farmers market on a warm summer morning in July.
We hung in easy silence for a few minutes, putting the finishing touches on the tree.
“Do you still write?” I asked the question that had beenburning the back of my tongue since I’d walked in and she’d broken me open with a hum.
She fiddled with an ornament of a dove as if it had suddenly become very interesting. “I write lists.”
“Skye.”
“I run an inn,” she said, which was not an answer, and we both knew it.
“You run an inn and what else?”
“And,” she admitted, quietly, “sometimes I write … bits. Lines. The middle of a thing that doesn’t exist yet.”
“Bring them to a beginning,” I said gently. “Or an end.”
“I don’t know if I want ends,” she said, even quieter.
“Try a chorus, then.” I was dying to reach out and brush a loose strand of her hair back, so I put a hand on the box to keep from touching her. “You taught me how to finish things, you know.”
“I taught you how to finish things you liked,” she amended. “I wouldn’t take credit for your tax filings.”
