Page 24 of Carry Me Home

‘I think Peter is a good name.’

The words land differently than I intended. Or exactly how I intended. I never know which, with Peter’s name – whether I’m being careful enough, whether any amount of careful is enough. Nina’s face flickers – shadows passing across it, quick and complicated, the door opening and closing in the space of a breath – and then she looks down at her mug.

‘It is,’ she says quietly. ‘It’s a good name.’

The silence sits between us. Chips sighs heavily and puts his chin on his paws. Through the crack in the shutters, the harbour is going gold. I hold the mug and I wait, because that’s the thing I’m good at. Waiting. Standing in the silence while Nina finds her way through it.

‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘I didn’t mean to⁠—’

‘No, it’s fine. It’s good, actually.’ She looks up, and her eyes are bright but she’s smiling, that smile she has when she switches it on, bright and cheerful, regardless of how she feels on the inside. I’ve seen it enough times to know what it looks like. ‘I’m glad they’re doing it. Peter would have found it hilarious. A tiny baby named after him, causing chaos. That’s exactly his sense of humour.’

‘The baby’s already causing chaos. Isla says it kicks every time Kit tries to sleep.’

‘Kit deserves it. He was insufferable when they first got back together again. Talk about overprotective buffoon. The universe owes Isla some karmic revenge.’ She takes another sip of tea, and the moment passes – the way moments do with Nina, always moving, never settling long enough for anyone to catch. She reaches over and squeezes my arm, just briefly, her fingers pressing through the sleeve of my shirt. ‘You’re good at that, you know.’

‘At what?’

‘Being there. When it gets heavy.’ She says it like she’s remarking on the weather. Like she’s telling me I’m good at fixing cars or remembering birthdays. ‘You never make it weird. You just … sit in it with me. I don’t know anyone else who does that.’

Because no one else loves you the way I do. The sentence forms completely and perfectly in my head, as clear as a diagnosis, and I put it away in the place where all the other things I haven’t said are stored. The filing cabinet is full. Has been for years. I keep finding room.

‘I’m a vet,’ I say. ‘Sitting with things is the job.’

She smiles. ‘Tell me more. What about the practice? Any good cases?’

‘Define good.’

‘Interesting. Unusual. Worthy of being photographed and sent to me as a form of psychological warfare.’

‘There was a tortoise with a respiratory infection.’

‘Tortoises can get respiratory infections?’

‘Tortoises can get everything. They’re surprisingly fragile.’

‘That’s devastating. I thought they were immortal.’

‘Common misconception. They’re just slow. People confuse longevity with invincibility.’

‘Don’t we all.’ She’s looking at me with that expression I can never read – warm and knowing and slightly too perceptive, like she can see to the back of the room but doesn’t know what’s there. ‘What else?’

‘A cockatiel with a vocabulary problem.’

‘What kind of vocabulary problem?’

‘It had learned some words from its previous owner that the new owner found objectionable.’

‘What words?’

‘I’m not repeating them.’

‘Tom.’ She leans forward, delighted, and the movement brings her close enough that I can smell her – coconut and floral petals, and underneath that is the warmth of Nina’s skin, which I know because I’ve been hugged by her a thousand times and filed every single one. ‘What words?’

‘They were mostly political in nature. And anatomical. There was some overlap.’

She laughs again, tipping her head back so the fairy lights catch the line of her throat, and Chips lifts his head to watch her with an expression of confused adoration. I know, buddy. I know. Every time she laughs, something in my chest loosens and tightens at the same time, which shouldn’t be physically possible but has been happening for so many years I’ve stopped questioning the anatomy of it.

‘I missed this,’ she says, when she’s recovered. ‘I missed you.’