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Devesh asks, “And what happened to the little girl from Kabul?”
“I…” Not knowing still slays me. All I can do is turn a page to show what the tide washed up for me one morning.
I’ve drawn a giant on his knees beside that tiny life vest, his head hanging limply, too heavy to hold up, and Devesh next asksthis more softly. “Did you know her full name or have any other information?”
Rex explains his husband’s interest. “Devesh is an archivist. A pro at linking old family roots with newer branches.” He turns the last page, his brow furrowing. “I thought you said the story was finished—that all you needed was my agreement to use the Safe Harbour name and you’d be all set for your final meeting with the publisher next Friday.” He flips another page as if looking for more. “Are some drawings missing?”
Thatwish you were here with memessage on my phone is heavy in my pocket. It is also my reason for blurting my own confession. “I thought I was done, but I’m not.” I blurt this as well. “But I will be. You can trust me to finish. I never miss a deadline.”
I feel like I am missing one right now.
With Hayden.
Because I left him to drive upcountry with hands that shook the last time I held them.
He’d been at the school all day long. Did I hear him use a chainsaw?
No, I fucking didn’t.
I did hear his breath catch while flipping through a scrapbook full of reminders of his father’s decline. That’s my reason for blurting for a third time, and this feels urgent. “I want to draw a happy ending. I can’t. Not yet, because I need to fill this gap first.” I tap an empty page, hoping and praying inspiration will strike soon. “It won’t take me long.” I start packing away, gathering photocopies from a diary, and closing my sketchbook. “So I do actually need to get going.”
“Now?”
“Right now. If I can catch the last train, or a really early one tomorrow, I can track down those final details and draw them before the deadline.”
“A train?” Rex glances at a grandfather clock tick-tocking close to midnight. He leans forward. “To where, exactly?”
I tell him, and he tilts his head one last time. This time towards a framed photo of him next to a helicopter.
“Well, if you can make yourself wait until the morning, I’ll fly you.”
Sometimes I make lightning-fast connections.Other times, I’m so slow to join dots that I could slap myself. It takes until we’ve chased the dawn almost all the way to my destination before I say, “Wait. Where are you a duke of, exactly?”
His voice is clear through my headset despite the roar of helicopter rotors. “I’m not. That’s my grandfather. And our duchy is the smallest in the country. Just one island and a mainland village called?—”
“Porthperrin?”
He nods.
“And the moorland?”
“Yes, some of that too. Nothing there but sheep and tors and?—”
“A quarry.”
He confirms that, but I’m already picturing another location where goalposts were cemented. Talking about that fills the rest of this flight, and we’re at my destination before I know it. And before most people are awake, which is handy. No one sees us land on playing fields near a training ground I hope to fuck is the same one Hayden said he could see from the house his family rented.
I go in search of it after Lord Heligan leaves me, and Hayden wasn’t wrong about the brightness of this pink paint. It’s a beacon I head straight for.
Tunnel vision strikes then, and a commuter has to slam on the brakes of his car to avoid me. I dodge it, still so focussed on that pink door and what is behind it that I keep running, barely stopping myself from hammering on the door when I reach it.
It’s way too early to knock hard or to ring the doorbell, only I’ve come in search of someone who works on a farming schedule, haven’t I? For someone who rises with the sun, and that is what I’m bathed in the moment Hayden says, “Rae?” from behind me.
I turn to face him, and I’ve joked before about needing a bigger sketchbook to do him justice, but fuck me, here’s the real truth—there isn’t enough paper in the world to capture the scale of his reaction.
He’s so happy to see me.
And disbelieving.
