Laurel brought the Christmas box at two-fifteen on Thursday.
I saw her through the kitchen hatch while the repairman was kneeling beside the walk-in door. She stood inside the café holding the carton against her middle, not looking for a table or anybody to take it from her. The string from the sewing box was tied around it.
“I’ll be a minute,” I told Charlie.
He glanced through the hatch and nodded. Mina was in the office. I tapped on the open door and told her who had arrived.
“Stay out front,” she said.
I went to the counter.
“Hello,” Laurel said.
“Hello.”
Her hair was down. It changed her face so much that for a moment I thought she looked younger; then I saw the lines beside her mouth and understood that she only looked less defended. She had taken the time to put on lipstick, but it had worn away at the center.
“These are Poppy’s things.”
“Tessa asked about them.”
“I know.”
She set the box on the counter. A corner had been repaired with brown tape. On top, beneath the string, lay the felt stocking from Helen’s wardrobe.
“Would you take it to her?”
“I can ask whether she’d like me to.”
Laurel looked down at the stocking.
“I don’t want her to have to see me.”
I took out my phone and sent Tessa a short message. Laurel stood while I typed, not asking what I was saying. That was new enough for me to notice.
“The repair people here?” she asked.
“Door seal.”
“I saw the van.”
I put the phone down. She could see me deciding whether to say it.
“Noah sent me a message about the inspection.”
Her eyes lifted.
“What message?”
“Asking how it went. Reed has it.”
She closed her eyes briefly.
“I’m sorry.”
I waited for her to tell me he hadn’t meant it. She didn’t.
“I spoke to my lawyer,” she said.
“Good.”
“I’m going back to the station tomorrow. She’s coming with me.”
I heard the repairman ask Charlie for a cloth. The radio on the kitchen shelf was playing an advertisement for windows. It seemed wrong that this could happen beside the life-changing thing Laurel was trying to say.
“Have you told her everything?”
“I’ve told her things I hadn’t told you.”
“About that Sunday.”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to tell Reed?”
She nodded. Her hands rested on the box, fingers spread against the cardboard as if she needed something to hold her upright.
“It’s going to hurt Noah.”
I looked at the stocking. Little silver stars had been sewn beside Poppy’s name. Not printed. Sewn, one by one, somebody sitting with the cloth in their lap and making a thing last.
“I know,” I said.
Laurel drew in a breath. For the first time I saw what she had been waiting for from me all along, not permission to lie, not even agreement. Somebody to tell her that the pain of telling the truth was a reason she should not have to do it.
I could not give her that.
“Does he know?” I asked.
“I told him I wasn’t going to speak for him anymore.”
“What did he say?”
She looked toward the door.
“He thinks you’ve made me.”
“Have I?”
She shook her head, slowly.
“No.”
My phone lit up. Tessa.
Yes, please. Thank you. No rush tonight.
I showed Laurel the screen. She read it, touched the edge of the stocking with one finger and let go.
“There’s nothing in it,” she said. “No note. I thought about writing one. I didn’t know who it would be for.”
“You can write to Tessa when you’re ready.”
“She won’t want it.”
“That can be her decision.”
Laurel nodded. She did not seem pleased to hear it. She seemed capable of hearing it anyway.
We stood on opposite sides of the counter. Customers came in behind her, two women with shopping baskets and a boy carrying a little pot of something prickly. I waited while Charlie took their order. Laurel moved aside so they could see the cakes.
I remembered her moving through my kitchen after Martin died, remembering the milk, folding clean cloths, putting her hand on my shoulder when she passed. I wanted that woman back with a desire so sharp it felt like anger. She was standing three feet away. There was no way to get her back by pretending not to see the rest of her.
“Will you call me afterward?” she asked.
“After tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know.”
She looked down.
“All right.”
“I don’t want to promise something and resent you for expecting it.”
She nodded again. Took the string from the box as if she meant to tidy it, then stopped and left it in a loose bow.
“Thank you for taking those.”
“Tessa asked for them.”
“I know.”
She left without touching my arm.
I watched through the glass until she reached her car. Nobody was waiting in it. She sat for a moment, as she had outside my house on the day she returned the yellow dish, and then drove away.
In the kitchen, the repairman had finished. He showed me the new seal and asked me to close the door so I could feel the difference. It caught firmly, no shiver of cold air along the edge. I signed his sheet and thanked him.
Mina came out of the office.
“Okay?”
“I don’t know.”
She looked at the box.
“Where do you want that?”
“In the car.”
“I’ll carry it. You make yourself a coffee.”
I did. Then I called Reed and left a message about Laurel’s visit, making clear that she’d said she was coming in with her lawyer the next morning. He would know the arrangement. I wanted him to know she had told me that Noah believed I’d made her do it.
At four, Charlie left for a college rehearsal he had been trying not to mention all afternoon.
“Go,” I said. “You’ve finished everything.”
“The fridge list—”
“I’ve got it.”
“Text me if you need anything.”
“Go and be brilliant.”
He grinned, picked up his bag and nearly left his keys behind. I made him come back for them.
Mina checked in at half past four before going to the front of the garden center, where a delivery had arrived in the wrong order. She said she’d come back before leaving. Jess sent a message saying she had finished at the practice and would be with me around quarter past five.
I sent her a picture of the cake I’d saved for her.
She replied, That had better not be dinner.
At five I turned off the display lights and put the last plates in the dishwasher. The café was empty. Through the glass wall I could see shoppers moving beneath the Christmas arches, slow shapes carrying plants and boxes of lights. Somewhere in the center a child was crying because he wanted to stay.
The front door opened behind me.
“We’re closed,” I said, lifting the milk jug.
“I can see that.”
I set the jug down.
Noah stood just inside the entrance. His jacket was wet across the shoulders. He had come through the outside door, not the garden center.
“You need to leave,” I said.
“Not until we’ve talked.”
I took my phone from my pocket and stepped toward the kitchen.
“I’m not having this conversation alone.”
“Then ring her.”
He put a hand on the back of a chair, pulled it away from the table and set it between himself and the door.
“Call my mother. Tell her you’re ready to talk.”