Page 12 of Carry Me Home

‘I don’t know why I left,’ I say. Not to her, exactly. To the street. To the Sunday morning.

She’s quiet for a moment. Then says, ‘I think you do if you look inside.’

‘I… I… maybe I left for space,’ I say. ‘I left for myself. I needed to⁠—’

‘Nina.’ She lands a gentle touch on my arm, but I can’t stop, not now it’s bubbling up out of me.

‘—to step back and⁠—’

‘Nina.’ She tucks her arm through mine, and I finally grind to a halt. ‘You know why you left.’

The thing is, she’s not wrong.

I have been standing on the outskirts of my own life for long enough that I have got quite good at describing the outskirts and calling it a view. Sea Salt Bay with the shutters down and Peter’s magnet still on the fridge and the quiz league chalkboard with his name on it, and the constant low hum of almost – the almost half a year of getting through, the almost of being all right. The nearness of returning to being Nina Ellis every time Tom Darcy sends me a text about Dot’s inexplicable Scotch egg, but still not quite living in her skin.

‘I left because I was tired of almost,’ I say, and it’s a whisper, a whisper of truth that I finally let free to fly into the vivid blue Truro sky. ‘The almost of forever. The almost of being healed. The almost of…’ Being me.

Mum squeezes my arm. Doesn’t say anything. This is, possibly, the most useful thing she has done in three weeks.

Inside, the coffee machine hisses again.

‘That machine needs looking at,’ I say.

‘It has a personality.’ She winks. ‘I’ve learned to work with it.’

I think about Tom’s text. I think about the fuchsias. I think about Meg at my ear – come home when you’re ready – and the way she said it.

‘Mum,’ I say.

‘Mm.’

‘Do we have any more scones?’

She hands me the tea towel and goes inside, and I follow her, and the Sunday carries on being a Sunday, and somewhere down the A39 Sea Salt Bay is doing what it always does – tides in, tides out, boats in the harbour, gulls on the wall – waiting for me to decide what I already know.

Chapter Four

TOM

This dog has opinions about the sofa.

Primarily, that it owns it. We’ve had three conversations about this today, which I’ve lost. It’s currently watching me from atop the cushion it claimed as its throne, one ear up, one ear down, knowing that it’s won and I don’t have it in me to try again.

Its brown eyes are fixed on me, declaring victory.

‘You’re not even supposed to be here,’ I tell it, turning my lip up. ‘You’re a temporary guest. Guests don’t colonise the furniture.’

Both ears stand to attention.

The flat is quiet – no footsteps on the stairs, no muffled sounds from the waiting room below, no phones ringing at reception. Dad’s practice. Even though he’s retiring, handing over, it’s still his. The building, the clients, the flat upstairs that he offered when I finished my training. Easier than commuting. And someone should be on site for emergencies. I’d moved in for a year, maybe two. That was five years ago.

Two bedrooms I don’t need, a kitchen that opens onto the living room, windows that catch the morning light. I’ve made it mine in the ways that matter – bookshelves overflowing onto the floor, a stack of veterinary journals by the armchair that I’ve been meaning to file for three years. The walls are the same white Dad painted them. I keep meaning to change that too. I keep meaning to do a lot of things.

The evening light is cool-toned May – pale and slow, catching dust motes. Through the glass I can see the harbour, the boats shifting gently on the water, and beyond them the roof of the Lavender Café.

I look away. The dog watches me do it.

‘Stop that,’ I tell it.