Satoshi laughed. ‘I don’t think you’re going to have any dramas renewing your lease.’
I brushed my thumb over Jonah’s wedding ring again, then, careful not to disturb either of the siblings snoozing on my shoulders, took my phone out.
There was nothing from Chess. No message, no well wishes – just the wine abandoned on my doorstep, and everything that signified.
I bit my lip, hard, until I tasted blood.
Jonah woke when Satoshi pulled the car into Fiona’s driveway. ‘Come on, Rosie-girl,’ he said softly, heaving her sleeping body into his arms. ‘Let’s get you to bed.’
Satoshi followed him, carrying Georgia. Lex stumbled inside under their own power, and I kept an arm around Fiona’s waist, making sure she didn’t trip and fall on the way to her bedroom.‘Thanks for letting me bully you into going out to the winery for your birthday, Sadie,’ she murmured, flopping face-first onto her bed. ‘It was such a nice day.’
‘Yeah, it was.’ I set a glass of water on her bedside table. ‘Sleep well, okay?’
‘Mmmm.’ She turned onto her side, snuggling her face into the pillow. ‘I’m so glad you married Jonah. I love you both so much.’
Something in my chest squeezed painfully tight.
‘Me too, Fiona,’ I whispered, grateful she’d already fallen asleep.
The night air was blessedly cool on my face as Jonah and I walked home. It was crisp and still and quiet, a few stars visible in the sky, the gibbous moon bright and pearly over the river, even if it was a few days away from its full glory.
‘I’m sorry your sister didn’t call.’ Jonah gestured to my handbag. ‘I could tell you were hoping.’
‘I was,’ I replied quietly. ‘But not expecting.’
That was the pattern, after all. Chess had lasted much, much longer than anyone else, but everyone always unbound themselves from me in the end.
I turned to go up the stairs of our apartment building, but Jonah took my elbow. ‘I got you something.’
He led me to the courtyard, where the community garden was. ‘It’s not much. Sorry.’
He gestured to a weedy, overgrown plot, three away from the one I’d taken over from Isamu. ‘I figured out whose it was and offered to take it off their hands. So you can have more space for your garden.’
‘Oh,’ was all I could say.
Jonah ran a hand through his hair, the moonlight winking silver off his scattering of greys. ‘I know a patch of dirt is a pretty shitty present, especially given how much work it’ll be to clear it, but I’ll help. And I’ll go to the nursery with you and get you whatever plants you want, and fertiliser and whatever – and God, I just realised I’m offering to buy you literal bags of shit for your birthday. Sorry. But—’
‘Stop.’
He stopped.
‘I love it. Thank you.’
He smiled, that sheepish Cardigan Jonah smile that I had started, at some point, to treasure. ‘I mean, it’s a pretty self-interested present. You grow very good vegetables.’ He took my hand. ‘Come on. It’s cold. Let’s go inside.’
‘Wait.’
I bit my lip again. The taste of blood was salty and metallic in my mouth.
‘We need to talk, Jonah.’ I looked at his hand in mine instead of at his face. I knew what I had to do, and if I looked him in the eye, I would lose my nerve. ‘About how this ends.’
Chapter NineteenJonah
It was not a complicated sentence.
I had spent a great deal of my career poring over complex, obscure, archaic language. If this were a line I were reading, I would skate right by it. It did not take effort to parse.
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I said anyway.
