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She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been in a pub. It had to be before she’d met Hugo, probably with some long-forgotten local boy who had taken her after going to the cinema, because her husband didn’t frequent them himself. His world was private clubs, restaurants, and dining rooms in the homes of friends and acquaintances large enough to have a table that seated at least eight.

“Do you know what? I think a drink sounds like just the thing,” she said.

William’s expression brightened instantly. “Really? I mean, I’m glad to hear it.”

The delight in his voice warmed her, the first bright spot in a long day. “I’ll just fetch my things.”

When they arrived, the pub’s lounge was only half-full. William found them a cozy corner where Sylvia sat while he went to the hatch in the wall to order their drinks from the publican on the other side. She watched him carefully carry back a pint of bitter for him and a gin for her before settling down across the table from her. To her left, a table of young women with their hair rolled away from their faces watched William pass by before breaking into giggles.

Sylvia dipped her chin to hide her smile at their open interest.

“Is something funny?” he asked, peering around.

“It’s nothing. To your health,” she said, raising her glass.

He tapped it lightly on the rim and took a sip of his beer, a little mustache of foam clinging to his upper lip before he licked it off.

He looked so much like the boy she’d known years ago, but she could see why the girls at the next table had looked him over with such complimentary gazes. His face had hollowed out to sharpen his cheekbones, and the way he wore his hair in a deep part gave him a dashing look she was certain he hadn’t realized.

“How are things at the shop?” he asked.

She smiled. “Better. Izzie finally wrote to me.”

“Did she?” he asked.

She nodded. “I don’t know whether it really helped or not, but I’m trying to be more honest with her and explain some of the decisions I made. Why I left the way I did.”

“Why did you leave?”

There was something about the sharpness of his tone that made her look up.

“I’m sorry,” he said, immediately backtracking. “It’s not my place.”

“No, you clearly have something to say, William. I would appreciate it if you would say it,” she pushed.

He toyed with his beer, spinning the glass so that it jittered against the rough wood of the pub’s table. Finally, he said, “One day you were there and the next it was as though you had never lived on Glengall Road at all.”

“I married. I moved away.”

“Yes, but people who marry go home to see their friends and family, Sylvia. Everyone on the road wondered about you. Before my mother died, she used to ask me about you from time to time. And I know that Mr. and Mrs. Meed from the tea shop always asked your mother what you were up to. Even Mrs. Reynolds wanted news.”

She remembered the grocer telling her about taking tea with Mrs. Meed and her mother. Asking after her.

“Did you know that when you became engaged, Mrs. Weatherstone who lived at number ten took out a subscription to one of the society magazines so she could scour the columns to see if there was any mention of you? She showed my mother your wedding announcement in The Times, she was so proud,” he continued.

“William…” She wanted him to stop. She didn’t want to think about all of these people she’d once known thinking about her like that, wishing her well when she hadn’t had a single thought for them.

“And then there’s your mother,” he said. “When she came to have me write her will, I asked her why she wanted to leave the shop to both of you. I never question clients’ decisions, but I had to know, because as far as I knew, you hadn’t been back in years. Do you know what she told me?”

“No,” she whispered.

“She said that one day you might need it. That was why she put that line in. To explain a little.”

She wrapped her hands around her drink, holding on to it as though it were a talisman.

“William,” she said slowly, “I need your advice.”

He shot her a look over the top of his pint. “As a solicitor or as a friend?”