“That was the deal,” she reminded him. “Remember, these are—”
“The Last Rooms Left,” they chorused.
It was what they’d said when they discovered that the radiators were purely decorative. Or that the only bathroom was two floors below. Or that the eerie whistling noise in the living room came from a Victorian speaking tube that nobody had bothered removing. They already loved their set of rooms with a passion bordering on obsession.
“And at least this high up,” Nat sighed, dropping into an armchair on top of her carefully folded shirts, “nobody can hear us if we scream. Hm. Is that a good thing, in our situation?”
“Nothing has tried to kill me for a week and a half.” Emma rescued her stack of new textbooks from their current role as Nat’s footstool. “I’ll count that as a win.”
Nat held one up. “Ah! So it’s all sorted?”
“Yep.” Emma grinned. “Confirmed today. I start on the natural sciences course in September. I’ve already picked all the zoology modules. I did the required sciences at school, so they didn’t have much more to say about it.”
“Welcome back to the University.” Nat adopted a lordly air. “Now, as the resident senior academic in these rooms—studying, as I shall be, for a master’s in English—Ow, Emma. I’ll stop. I was only about to say”—this in an injured tone, evading Emma’s hands—“that this calls for a cooking night to celebrate. My auntie’s just sent me a new recipe. All in Yoruba this time, so let’s see how good I’ve gotten.”
“Spicy?” Emma asked, hopefully.
“The bishop has strenuously warned against making it, which bodes well. My adored father finds bread sauce too peppery. I can’t imagine how he coped before he moved to England. But that reminds me—wasn’t your father meant to be here?”
“He called. He wanted to stop by for lunch. Between business trips, of course,” said Emma. A wry note had entered her voice. “He said he was worried when I went missing. That he felt badly, not being there when I was growing up. But—”
“Go on.”
“I’m very proud of myself about this part.”
“I’ll make a big fuss of you,” Nat promised.
“I told him not to bother. I’ve done without him all this time. I don’t need him. I realized”—Emma took a deep breath—“it was my mum I really needed to talk to.”
She turned a textbook over in her hands.
“I’d never told her, not properly. How I feel about all themoving. How I’ve always felt. Leaving my home and my friends, even when I begged her to stay. It felt like I didn’t matter. Or just not as much as her work.”
“And did you?” Nat leaned forward. “Tell her?”
“I called her this morning.”
It had been a strange conversation. Emma’s heartbeats had seared her chest. Her breath had felt just as frantic, as hunted, as when she’d run from Richard or fled the Boar. But she hadn’t known how much better it would feel, once the words were out there, spoken. She’d said all of the selfish things she’d hidden for so long. And her mother had listened, as though they weren’t awful or shameful at all. As though she saw all of Emma, even the hard, vicious, angry parts, and loved her anyway.
“She said that she was the selfish one. That she’d persuaded herself I was coping fine, because she needed to believe it. Because she wanted those jobs; the moves to exciting new places. And it does sound hard, Nat. Being a mother and your own person at the same time.”
Emma’s mother had told her other things, too. That deep down, she’d been trying to give her daughter the life she’d always dreamed of. Travel, independence: all the things she herself hadn’t grown up with. More than that, she’d wanted to be the best in her fieldbecauseof Emma. To be the kind of parent Emma would look up to. Because she worried she wouldn’t be enough of a parent, by herself. Without Emma’s father. That she couldn’t fill in the gaps.
Emma shook her head. “I never knew.”
Nat raised an eyebrow. “And how did you feel about it all?”
“Fine,” she said. “I told her I was already proud of her. That I never needed another parent. And that what I wanted right now,more than anything, was to have her with me. Not in a research station across the world.”
Nat applauded.
“It felt so selfish to say. But it was kind of freeing, being selfish out loud.” Emma felt the grin lighting up her face. “She phoned back a few hours later. She said that I always came first, no matter what. And Nat, she’s moving here. As in, right here, near the University. She’ll live in town until l graduate. She called the University about it at lunch. Apparently, they offered her a job on the spot.”
“On the spot?” Nat repeated, stupefied.
“She’s that good. The University Plant Sciences Department’s been after her for years.” Emma couldn’t keep the pride from her voice. “It might take her a while to sort out a house in town, so it’ll be just you and me staying at the University this summer, just like we planned.”
“Just as it should be.”
