Page 47 of The Bookshop of Forbidden Books

A splinter jabbed deep into his thumb.

“Not exactly,” Anna replied, moving a salad bowl only to set it back exactly where it had been a few seconds later.

“Murder?”

He yanked the splinter out, and his thumb started bleeding.

“Kind of,” she answered, her tone detached.

Mitch wondered, while she bandaged his thumb, what she meant by kind of. If she’d said I kind of like him that would have made sense, but I kind of killed him made none at all. Unless it had been an accidental murder, he thought. He had no idea if an accidental murder was even possible, given that those two words contradicted each other.

There was no such thing as a kind of murder. Killing someone while driving drunk, for example, was an accident, but it was still killing. And Anna didn’t strike him as much of a drinker. She’d brought tea to their riverside picnic, and they’d had water with their lobster fettucine at dinner. Unless she was a recovering alcoholic? But Mitch dismissed that theory almost immediately.

He went back to work with the planer again – at the rate he was going, there would soon be room to climb over the door – and the more he thought about her kind of the more it gnawed at him. If Anna had killed someone accidentally, she wouldn’t have needed to flee the country. Even if she’d pushed an attacker off a balcony without meaning to send them over the railing, that would count as self-defence. Anna didn’t have a violent temperament. But if she’d only kind of killed someone, then maybe she was only kind of responsible. That conclusion reassured him.

“One question,” he said at last, hanging the door back on its hinges. “Just one. Do you regret it?”

“No.”

Mitch left it at that. For the next half hour, neither of them said a word, each working busily in a silence that spoke louder than words.

Then, abruptly, Mitch was forced to reconsider his judgment of Anna’s temperament. She had picked up a large hammer, and there was a look in her eyes that he had never seen before. She smashed it into the tiles above the double sink, methodically destroying the lowest row, then the one above it. She paused to assess the damage, then struck again, even harder, not stopping until she’d completely obliterated the third and fourth rows up.

“They weren’t straight!” she panted, on the verge of tears. “The grout will end up cracking and water will get in, and then mould will contaminate everything…”

Through the haze of dust, Mitch saw something in her eyes that went far deeper than misaligned tiles. He knew exactly how she was feeling.

“Pushing back the restaurant opening won’t fix anything. You’ve got stage fright, and that’s totally normal. You’re so talented, Anna. Everything is going to be fine.”

“Because there’s nothing to say it won’t,” Anna murmured, echoing her neighbour in the Great White North.

Mitch walked out to the little shed behind the restaurant, returned with a broom and a dustpan, and quietly swept up the dust and debris. He took one load to the trash, then made a second trip, this time returning with a box of fresh tiles and a tube of grout.

While he was repairing the damage, a truck pulled up in front of the restaurant, and two deliverymen began unloading stacks of tables and chairs. Mitch watched Anna direct them as they arranged the furniture, changing her mind again and again until they abandoned everything in the middle of the dining room and left without even asking for a tip.

Watching them go, Anna wondered if Mitch’s faith in her bright future wasn’t slightly misplaced.

“You know,” he called from the kitchen, “for the bar – I have a great cocktail book. I’m sure if I had a good read-through, I could manage pretty well. I’ll come back tonight… er, after I close the shop. I should probably open for a few hours. Better for my wallet.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “How do you know it’s a great cocktail book if you’ve never read it?”

Mitch was silent for a moment. Then: “What I meant to say was, if you need a pair of hands, mine are at your disposal.”

Anna kissed him. Game, set, match.

* * *

By eight o’clock that night, the dining room was starting to look more like an actual restaurant. The walls were dry, the floors polished and the chandelier spilled a soft, golden light over the tables and chairs, though these were still a mess. As Anna took in the results of a long day’s work, her nerves came rushing back. Taking her in his arms, Mitch asked her to tell him honestly what she was thinking.

“Oh… it’s just that…” Her voice faltered.

“What’s wrong? Just say it,” Mitch coaxed.

“I don’t want you to judge me. I know how much trouble you’ve gone to help me. But today… I just felt like giving up.”

“And yesterday?”

“The same.”