Page 67 of Troubles

I drop my head into my hands making peace with what I know I have to do. The light streaming in through the window glints off the photo Lis took of us at the beach.

I pick up the frame and knock something to the floor. When my fingers meet cold metal, the lump in my throat becomes too hard to swallow around. I clutch her ring over my heart. My arse hits the floor when I slide down off the mattress, my back propped against the side of the bed. I don’t know how long I sit there, the symbol of all I hoped for clutched to the spot Lis always rested her hand. I held it right fucking there yesterday.

Scrubbing the tears from my face, I stand and slide the ring on the little finger of my left hand. Without thinking I reach for Lis’ school bag knowing she keeps a pad of paper in there. My hand drops to my side and with a shuddering breath it hits me again that she’s gone.

I shuffle out to the kitchen and pull my credit card from my wallet, letting it fall to the counter. I slide it to Lorna. “I have to run out, need to let Francie know I’m leaving. Can”—Jesus, I can’t believe I’m doing this—“can you book me a flight home? End of this week, if you can get us on the same flight. I’ll be done with the shoot late Thursday, so—I don’t know, as soon as possible.”

My eyes never leave the counter as the images of eating breakfast—making dinner—with Lis flash through my memory.

Francie opens his door after three raps of my knuckles and zeroes right in on the bruise blossoming on my cheek.

“Looks like Finn talked to you already. Come in and tell me your troubles, then.”

Francie’s little house backs up to the pub and looks like an eighty-year-old grandmother lives here. He straightens a lacy circle on the back of a chair before offering me a seat on the dainty floral couch.

It’s my first time here and I can’t help looking for the twenty-three cats he’s probably collecting.

I perch on the edge of the uncomfortable couch, hating what I came here to say. There’s no reason to put it off any longer. I twirl my key ring around the key to McBride’s.

“I’m leaving.”

He leans back into the uptight chair he’s sitting in, his forehead wrinkled in surprise. “That’s not what I expected. Have ye told Lis?”

“It was her idea, Francie. Said I was a distraction. To go home and see my family while she sorts herself.”

I feel him staring at me, but I can’t face him. I can’t look him in the eye.

“I leave in the morning for a photo shoot in New York City and then we’ll fly out Friday. Don’t know when I’ll be back.”

I pull the key to the pub off the ring and place it on the glass-topped coffee table.

“We?”

“I’m booked on the same flight as Lorna.” My voice catches and I have to swallow back the tears that burn behind my lids. “It just makes sense to travel home with her.”

“Not a thing about this makes sense and ye know it.” He fixes me with the same look he gave me last night.

“Leaving Lisbeth is the last thing I want to do,” I grind out, pain shooting through my bruised face as I work my jaw back and forth.

“Then why are you doin’ it? Stay. Tell ’er how important she is. That you’ll do what she needs, stay out of ’er way, if that’s what she wants. But do it from here.”

He’s spent so much time in the past six months threatening me—pushing me away from her. The change of heart throws me off.

“Why? She doesn’t want me here. Why are you so invested in this now? You’ve been warning me off at almost every turn.”

“Because I love that girl like she’s my own. And I’ve not seen her this happy, this settled in all the time I’ve known her. Let me talk to her, find out her reasoning before you go.”

He’s right. Nothing makes sense anymore.

I pull the envelope from my back pocket, her ring safely tucked inside. “I’m going. I’ll visit my family, then…I don’t know, then I’ll come back if she wants me. Will you give her this, though? Please?”

He makes me wait a lifetime, before he reaches out to take the envelope.

A tight-lipped nod.

A heartfelt hug.

A silent farewell.

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