Garvin hugged her, hard, with all the unconditional, unquestioning love she’d had from him all of her life. ‘OK, honey. You go sleep.’
Chapter Forty
Her cell phone informed her that it was 07.13 Eastern Daylight Saving Time, Saturday August 10th in Hamilton Drives, CT, USA. The weather was sunny and already 72 degrees.
She had slept for more than twelve hours. She lay under the single sheet that was all she needed in the summer and blinked at the sun edging the blinds, trying to orientate herself. She was in her childhood room at home, pearly pink and ivory, and the blind rattled in the morning breeze in the old familiar way. She swallowed. Her phone might as well have said,You’re back where you started. Now what?
She closed her eyes again.
The next time she woke it was nearly ten and the household was alive. She could hear her father and Karen laughing downstairs and Zach’s voice from his room, probably on the phone.
She’d hardly noticed last night that her old bathroom had been made into a wet room, with a big chrome showerhead and a crystal clear screen. Now she stood beneath the deluge and let the water rouse her, before dressing in shorts and a T from the bags Zach had brought up for her, and drying her hair. She hadn’t answered the questionNow what?yet but figured it could be left until after the weekend. Then she’d have to decide, and maybe do something sensible like get all her belongings in one place—
She thought of the red suitcase she’d left in Martyn’s apartment and turned her mind swiftly away. There was nothing there that couldn’t be replaced if . . . If he didn’t contact her when he saw all his sites restored to perfection.
Sometime today she was going to have to get all superhero and turn her UK phone on and see if he’d been trying to call. And hope it wasn’t to say, ‘Let’s just call it quits.’ That would plungeher into an abyss of grief she wasn’t yet strong enough to plumb. Her heart already felt leaden enough to drag her to the edge.
Whatever happened with Martyn, she would call Ru, soon, maybe tomorrow. She would call Ru and keep calling him, because she was a continuing thread in his life, whereas, in Martyn’s, she could be no more than a loose end. Maybe one he wished he could unpick.
She shook away those thoughts and concentrated on her hair, braiding it to one side of her neck and capturing it in a white band.
Pasting on a serene expression, she ran downstairs to join her family. Judging from the sympathetic looks, the serene expression wasn’t fooling anyone, but at least, even if they were bursting to, nobody said, ‘So howareyou?’ or ‘What went wrong?’, which would be guaranteed to melt her to tears.
In a kitchen that went with someone who liked to cook — a range, copper pans and lethal looking knives — Karen, her blonde hair loose around her head, poured Honor coffee.
Jessamine had ready one of her customary massive hugs. ‘How about a movie, later? We might even let Zachary come with us, seeing as he’s home till he goes back to college.’
‘Gee, thanks, a chick flick,’ mocked Zach, tugging Honor’s hair.
She ruffled his, which he’d let grow long in front, in return. ‘So how was Texas?’
Zach grinned from behind the hair she’d dragged over his eye, reminding her of Ru. ‘Hot. I fit right in.’
Garvin held a file as if he’d meant to work, looking over his reading glasses. ‘It’s good to see you kids all together.’ Which produced a ball-sized lump in Honor’s throat and she had to blow her nose.
Karen shook chicken breasts in a bag full of something to season them and then put them in the refrigerator, taking out salad to wash.
‘Looks to me like a barbecue,’ Honor commented, joining her at the sink, as she always would have.
Karen smiled. ‘I thought it would be nice, while everybody’s together. It’s too hot to cook in here. But I can do this if you want to talk to your dad — Oh, there’s the door.’ She slipped away up the hall.
Honor took over the washing of the salad, half-listening to Zach’s account of his internship with a global engineering concern, showing him that he had a whole lot to learn.
From the hallway, she heard Karen say, ‘Hi there!’ as she might to a stranger.
A deep rumble answered her and Honor’s hands stilled.
Then Jessamine looked up through the kitchen doorway and said, ‘Whoa!’ under her breath, as Karen stepped back in, her voice the same mix of curiosity and admonishment with which she used to greet one of Honor’s new dates. ‘Honor, you have a visitor.’
And Martyn stepped in behind her, tall and impressive in black jeans and white shirt, a holdall in his hand.
Zach rose and so did Garvin. Martyn, usually so much the courteous Englishman, ready with his handshakes and his slow smile, didn’t take his eyes off Honor to acknowledge that there was any other person in the room.
So everyone turned to look at Honor, standing at the sink with her cupped hands full of cold, wet lettuce.
She heard Jessie say, ‘Aren’t you going to introduce us, Honor?’
But her tongue had stuck to the roof of her mouth. All she could do was stand there with water dripping from her wrists and on to her bare feet and the floor, her gaze pinned helplesslyto Martyn’s dark eyes. Vaguely, she heard her dad’s voice. ‘Honor? Is this someone you want to see?’
