Page 204 of Saint Céline
For a long time, none of us spoke. Miss Astoria climbed out of the suitcase and settled across all three of our laps like she had decided grief was best managed by shared weight.
Eventually, Sophia asked, “Does he make you happy?”
I looked toward the doorway. Vincent was not there. He had left deliberately when they arrived, giving us privacy because he understood some rooms could not belong to him.
“I think so,” I said.
Anya lifted her head. “Wrong answer?”
I wiped my face. “He makes me feel seen.”
Sophia’s fingers tightened around mine. “Then go.”
* * *
The day we left Blackwater, it rained as usual. The town had the theatrical instincts of a grieving widow and the climate of a punishment. Rain silvered the roads, darkened the stone walls of Bellamont, and slid down the windows of Vincent’s car as we drove past Westgrave Hall for the last time.
I looked at the terrace one final time. The ledge was barely visible from the road—a dark line beneath the grey sky. From below, it looked harmless. Almost delicate. Just another architectural detail on a university that had survived too many secrets to be impressed by mine. I thought I would feel Katherine there. I didn’t. Maybe ghosts did not stay where they died. Maybe they followed the living because the living were the ones who owed them.
Katherine was in the suitcase beside me, in the cream blouse I still could not bring myself to give away, in the proposal I had left behind, in the part of my mind that would always understand survival as something bought with another girl’s silence. She would come with me, giving me grief and pain for the rest of my life.
That was fair.
My mother sat in the back seat with Miss Astoria’s carrier on her lap. The cat had screamed for twenty minutes, then fallen asleep mid-complaint. My mother kept one hand on top of the carrier and looked out at the rain with a face I could not quite read.
“You’re quiet,” I said.
She smiled faintly. “I am thinking.”
“About?”
“Sunlight.”
I looked at her. Her smile grew. “I have not lived somewhere sunny in a long time.”
Something inside me loosened.
Vincent drove beside me, one hand on the wheel, calm as ever. He wore a dark coat and white shirt, no tie. The absence of formality made him look almost human. His eyes flicked briefly to mine.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“Don’t lie.”
His mouth curved. “You look relieved.”
I looked out the window. Blackwater blurred past in grey streaks. “I feel guilty about that.”
“I know.”
“You’re not going to tell me I shouldn’t?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“You should feel what you feel,” he said. “Then decide what it means later.”
