“I saw the job advertised.” Emma tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I’d been in the hospital for a while and I wanted a change. Something slower. Or not slower, that’s not the right word. Something with a different kind of purpose, I suppose. I hadn’t planned to stay two years but the work just, it fit. It’s the most rewarding thing I’ve done.” She was quiet for a moment.“And as you know, I’m no stranger to death. I’ve watched someone I love die in hospice care, so I know what that room feels like from the other side of the bed. What you need from the person looking after them. What you need them to say and not say. I think that made me good at it.”
The candlelight caught Emma’s jaw as she turned toward the coffin. Two years of sitting with families in their worst hours, learning when to speak and when to stay silent. Natalie saw it in her now—a steadiness that came from practice.
“Why don’t you go and lie down for a few hours.” Emma’s voice shifted, gentler now. “Get some sleep. I’ll sit with her.”
“You’ve been traveling for God knows how long. You should be the one resting.”
“I slept on the plane.” Emma stood, and the chair scraped softly against the floor. “It’s fine. Really.” She reached down and took the mug from Natalie’s hands before Natalie could protest, her fingers brushing Natalie’s knuckles as she lifted it away. She gathered her own mug and carried them both into the kitchen. Water ran briefly. A clink of ceramic.
When Emma came back she didn’t sit down. She stood in the doorway with one hand resting against the frame.
“Go on. Get some rest.”
Natalie stood. She felt heavy in a way that had nothing to do with the late hour. She moved toward the doorway, toward Emma, and wanted to reach for her like she had earlier at the front door. But something stopped her—the five years between them, the strangeness of being close again without knowing the boundaries.
Emma’s hand touched her arm, light, just above the elbow. Then Emma stepped in and put both arms around her. Natalie felt whatever was holding her upright give way. She leaned into Emma’s shoulder and closed her eyes.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” Natalie said. “Tomorrow’s going to be hard.”
Emma’s arms tightened slightly. “We’ll get through it together.”
Natalie nodded against her shoulder. She stayed for a few more moments. Then she stepped back. Emma’s hand slid down her arm and fell away.
She walked down the hallway to her bedroom without turning around.
9
The morning after the funeral, Emma had knocked on Natalie’s door with the intention of asking to borrow her car. She needed to sort a dozen small things that had been piling up since she’d landed, errands that required wheels and a few hours in Galway, and she’d stood on the step rehearsing her ask because it felt wrong to bother anyone the day after they’d buried their grandmother.
She’d considered calling Trish, but Trish would be working, and the dealership closed at six. So she knocked. Natalie opened the door barefoot, mug of tea in hand, and before Emma could finish speaking, Natalie said she’d come along. Said she could use the drive and didn’t want to spend the day in the house. Emma thought about Galway in July—the festival crowds, the tourists, Shop Street packed with people—and almost said something. But Natalie’s face looked lighter than it had all week, and wanting a day out the morning after your grandmother’s funeral wasn’t strange. It was healthy. So Emma said okay and hoped the sunglasses would be enough.
They’d started at a used car dealership on the Tuam Road where Emma put a deposit on a white BMW 3 Series. By the time they left and drove into the city center, the day had settled intosomething warm and uncomplicated—the first uncomplicated thing Emma had felt since Trish’s phone call.
Now they were on Shop Street and the sun was shining, with buskers dotted along the busy pedestrianized street, the crowds moved around them. Tourists wandered with ice cream and shopping bags. Locals cut through at twice the speed.
Natalie walked beside her. Emma tried not to look at her and failed.
White linen trousers sat low on her hips. An olive sleeveless top showed her collarbones and arms. She wore sandals, hair down past her shoulders, sunglasses covering half her face. Her phone was in her back pocket.
She looked like she belonged somewhere else—some square in the south of France, maybe, or a terrace restaurant in California. The white trousers. The way she moved. She seemed unaware of it, which made it harder not to stare. She wasn’t performing. She was just walking down a street in the sunshine, shoulders relaxed, stride easy.
“I’m starving,” Natalie said. “We should find somewhere to eat.”
Emma’s stomach tightened, the smallest flicker of something she couldn’t quite name. Galway in July, a restaurant, Natalie with her sunglasses off. She glanced at the crowd. Did Natalie realize how risky that would be? Or was she just so happy to be out in the sunshine that she didn’t care?
“Yeah, sure. What are you thinking?”
“Somewhere with a table outside? It seems criminal to waste this.”
She was right. The day was too good to sit indoors. Natalie had lifted her face toward the sun, eyes closed behind the tinted lenses. Her expression was softer than Emma had seen in a long time.
They kept walking, keeping an eye out for an empty table. The sound of a fiddle grew louder, a fast reel that had drawn a small circle of onlookers, their heads bobbing in time with the music. Emma automatically angled herself around the edge of the crowd. Natalie stayed close. Then their arms brushed—just once, just barely.
The woman appeared from the cluster near the fiddle player, stepping forward with the velocity of someone who had recognized a face and was acting before she could talk herself out of it.
“Sorry, are you...” She was in her late twenties, flushed, smiling so hard her cheeks were pushing into her eyes. “Are you Natalie Clarke? Oh my God. I’m such a huge fan. I’m so sorry to bother you, could I just get a quick photo?”
Behind her, two friends had already appeared with phones raised.
