She waited, tucking back down under her covers as she saw the little bubbles on the screen that told her he was typing straight back. They’d been having such a great time, it had completely slipped her mind to show him the night before.
Do you have time this afternoon to show me? I’ll be at rehearsals, but we take a break at 3pm?
Ella smiled at her phone.
Sure. Text me the address and I’ll bring coffee. Espresso? Flat white?
The little bubbles appeared and then disappeared, and Ella waited a moment before deciding she really did need to get in the shower. If she was seeing Gabriel, she was definitely washing her hair and putting some time into getting ready. She abandoned her phone and was just stripping out of her pyjamas when her phone pinged again.
Double shot espresso. The next one’s on me.
Followed by:
I’ll text the address through soon, just wait outside the rear door and I’ll come out and meet you.
A shiver of anticipation ran through Ella as she dropped her phone to the bed again and hurried to the shower. She very much liked that he was already thinking of the next time they’d have coffee together.
Dating hadn’t been on her radar for months. She’d been too busy with work, and although she’d dabbled in the apps, she’d felt uncomfortable meeting someone that way. Not to mention that the pandemic had completely ruined any chance of meeting someone organically. But spending time with Gabe, meeting someone who had the ability to make her heart race, was telling her that perhaps her all work, no play attitude was in need of tweaking. And maybe half her problem was that she found it hard to trust someone new. But Gabe wasn’t new, he was someone she already felt she could at least halfway trust, and perhaps that was exactly what she’d been looking for.
* * *
Ella was early. She’d already stopped in at the gallery and made sure everything was under control, before walking down to the café where she’d arranged to meet Mia. It was a fifteen-minute walk but she’d enjoyed the fresh air, and now she was already finishing off her muffin and latte as Mia walked through the door. Ella quickly brushed her fingers on the napkin and rose to wave.
‘Hi, Ella,’ Mia said as she sat down.
‘Thank you so much for offering to meet me. I hope you didn’t have to change your plans?’
‘Not at all. Do you want another coffee?’
Ella shook her head. ‘No, but let me get yours.’
They chatted for a few minutes about the weather and what to drink before Ella went up to the counter and ordered. When she returned, Mia was absently touching the sugars on the table, her fingers moving gently over the edges of each packet as if she were deep in thought. She looked different to when Ella had first met her—her hair was loose about her shoulders, and she was dressed down in jeans and trainers, the complete opposite to how she’d been dressed the other day in a silk shirt and smart shoes. She definitely appeared much more relaxed.
‘I have so many questions, I don’t even know where to begin.’
Mia smiled up at her. ‘I have so many questions too. I know how you feel.’
‘You do?’
‘I was also left a box. Well, the box had my aunt’s name on it, and because she had no children, I was the one to claim it.’
Ella’s eyes widened. ‘Have you made head or tail of it? Of what was left for her?’Mia shook her head. ‘No, but this one was different to the others. This one had been opened, presumably by my aunt, but then put with the others beneath the floorboards. It was obvious the string had already been pulled, and it wasn’t as dusty as the others.’ She laughed nervously. ‘Would you believe, my box had nothing in it. It was my greatest fear, when I had you all summoned by her lawyer, that there might be nothing in all the others either, so I was actually relieved to hear from you.’
If Ella’s curiosity had been piqued before, now she was downright hooked.
‘There was nothing? Not even one clue?’
‘Not a thing,’ Mia said. ‘But it only makes me even more fascinated by your box.’
‘Would you like to take a look? Just in case the clues left inside mean something to you?’ She reached into her bag and took out the little box, carefully passing it to Mia. ‘They honestly mean nothing to me, no matter how much I stare at them.’
Ella watched as Mia studied both items, before putting them back down. ‘When I found the boxes, I had this overwhelming feeling that they had to be reunited with the person on the tag, or at the very least a descendant of that person.’ She hesitated. ‘I actually found a list of names on her desk, names that all matched up with the boxes left behind. It made me more determined than ever to honour her life’s work, or at least try to.’
‘You think she’d made a list of the women she had to contact? That she intended sending the boxes to their rightful owners before she passed away?’
‘That’s what I’d like to believe.’ Mia folded her hands on her lap, and Ella could see how much it all meant to her. ‘If there was more that I could tell you, I would. Part of me wonders if the boxes were ever supposed to be discovered at all, or if these were the ones that weren’t to be shared, as if my aunt had hidden them for good reason. But I couldn’t let them all be destroyed with the house. If I had, I would have always wondered if they contained something important, some part of someone’s heritage that was supposed to be uncovered.’
Ella reached across the table and touched Mia’s hand, seeing the tears shining in her eyes. She could see what a difficult decision it must have been for her to make.
