He raised one hand, briefly, in a gesture that was not quite surrender but was adjacent to it. "Fine. I will take her."
"Thank you."
"But I would still like to know where you are going."
Elizabeth stood and smoothed the front of her coat. "I know you would."
"We live in the same house," he said. "If something were to come up, if Mia needed —"
"I have my phone. It will be on."
"That is not what I mean. I am not asking to be difficult. If you are going somewhere and something were to happen, someone in this house should know where —"
"Darcy." She picked up her bag. "I am an adult. I am not obliged to account for my movements to you."
"I am not asking you to account for anything. I am asking as someone who shares —"
"Have a nice morning."
She walked past him toward the front door without offering any further explanation.
***
Having decided to take the day off to rest. Darcy collected the mail on his way back in from dropping Mia at school.
It was a habit he had picked up without deciding to, the same way he had picked up knowing which shelf the good coffee was on and which drawer stuck and that the third stair from the bottom creaked if you stepped on the left side of it. The small geography of a house that was not his, learned anyway, because he was here and it was in front of him and Darcy had always paid attention to the things in front of him.
He took the stack inside and set it on the kitchen table and put the kettle on.
Most of it was for James and Charlotte.
He had known it would be. It always was. A magazine subscription James had clearly forgotten to cancel. A catalogue for a garden centre, which made no sense given that they had no garden, but Charlotte had apparently been on their mailing list and nobody had told the garden centre yet. A loyalty card renewal from a restaurant on Atlantic Avenue. A letter from their building insurance provider addressed to Mr and Mrs Fitzwilliam in the particular font of something automated and indifferent.
He put them in a separate pile. He would need to work through them, cancel what could be cancelled, redirect what needed redirecting. It was the kind of task that sat at the edge of the grief rather than inside it, practical and necessary and slightly unbearable for being both.
He went through the rest of the stack methodically.
A bill. A bank statement for Mia's savings account, which he set aside to pass to the lawyer. A circular from a local councillor that nobody had asked for.
And then, near the bottom, a small envelope.
Thick paper. Ivory coloured. The kind of envelope that announced itself.
The return address in the top left corner said only: Ember. In a clean, unhurried typeface, nothing else. No street address. No website. Just the name.
It was addressed to Elizabeth Anne Bennet.
Darcy set the rest of the mail down.
He looked at the envelope. It was sealed and it was hers and he was not going to open it. He was not the kind of person who opened other people's mail. He set it on top of the pile that he’d categorisedgeneral,and he went to pour his coffee.
Darcy stood at the counter and drank his caffein and thought about something else but the letter.
He lasted approximately ninety seconds before his curiosity got the best of him.
He picked up his phone and typed Ember into the search bar.
The first result came back immediately. A clean website. Minimal design. A single line at the top of the page.
