Page 29 of The Last Letter of Rachel Ellsworth

“It’s 999, but I see a bunch of people with their phones out.”

She joined him at the window. A small car had tried to dart by a truck and hit another car head-on. All three vehicles occupied the intersection. A pain ran through Veronica’s midsection. “That doesn’t look good for the little car.”

“No,” he agreed, and turned away from the window. “I don’t think we’ll be driving today. We’ll have to take the tube.” He pulled out his phone and punched some buttons.

“You think Mariah can manage?”

“Yes,” he said emphatically. “She needs to get back to her life.”

Mariah appeared, combed, washed, presentable. “What do I need to do?”

He stood. “We’re taking the trains today. Give you some exercise. Grab the cane.”

She frowned darkly. “And pain pills. Are the tube stations filled with stairs?”

“Some of them. But you’ll do all right.”

“Will I?” She looked mulish.

“You will,” he said. “Let’s go.”

Chapter Fifteen

As the trio headed out into the slightly drizzly day, Mariah realized she felt okay. Better than okay, honestly. Her body was rested, and the sex had given her a sense of normality and ease. As they exited the hotel, sirens whooped toward them, pushing through the traffic backing up thanks to the accident. Sometimes sirens could set off her PTSD, but the pattern of the English sirens was not the same as the ones in the US. The only reaction was a slight prickle down her arms.

It buoyed her. Maybe she was getting better.

The crowds were thick, rubberneckers slowing the usual foot traffic. Mariah used her cane mainly as a steadying tool, weaving along with Henry and Veronica to the tube station down the block. As she passed the pub, she looked in the window and smiled to herself, thinking of hands sliding over her body, the solid deliciousness of an actual human man.

In the station, she tripped a bit over a threshold, but they boarded the tube without incident. They sat side by side, Mariah at the end, Veronica between her and Henry. She wore an emerald-green sweater that made her look brighter and younger, but the hair was just so staid—smoothed to her shoulders, the bangs brushed sideways over her sunglasses. The lip color was understated, but Mariah thought she had put something on. Her mother had always worn full makeup out of the house, and Veronica was somewhere less than that.

Smugly, she was glad that she didn’t need makeup.

At Southall station, they emerged into a bustling street. Mariah blinked happily. A woman in a blue tunic and pants bustled by, her black hair braided away from her face. Teenagers spilled out of a bus, laughing and jostling each other. A sign across the street was in Hindi. An older man in a pressed muslin tunic and a kufi regally moved by them.

Quietly, Veronica asked, “Is this Brick Lane?”

Mariah just avoided snorting. Luckily, Henry said, “Good guess. But no. This is Southall.” He directed them to turn left, and they joined the people on the sidewalk. Mariah peered in the windows of the shops they passed.

Henry had his camera in his hand, and they wandered awhile. He took shots of various things, as he always did, his camera an extension of his hand. Veronica came alive, exchanging pleasantries with vendors offering fruit and trinkets, making one man with an enormous mustache laugh outright and offer her a free slice of watermelon, which she accepted with a smile. Mariah watched Henry shoot photos of the exchange and wondered what he was seeing. In the damp day, Veronica’s hair had lost its smooth finish and started to frizz a bit, and her expression was open, curious, and for lack of a better word, bright. Mariah liked this side of her more.

“I think the café is down this close,” Henry said, and they ducked into a narrow alleyway, where the footing was slippery enough that Mariah reached for his elbow. “You okay?” he asked.

“Good,” she answered, holding on to the crook of his elbow. In the cold damp, her knee and all the bits of metal holding her femur together ached. She wished she’d brought a puffer jacket that reached her knees.

But she wasn’t into regret. It was what it was. They passed a shop crowded with fabric, and flowerpots empty with the season. Overhead, someone spoke in a dizzying tumble of syllables Mariah didn’t recognize, and someone else answered in English, “Ma, leave me alone! I’mdoingit.”

She laughed and Veronica glanced over, grinning in agreement. “Some things are always the same.”

“So you have kids?” Mariah asked.

“Yes. Three. A twenty-six-year-old son, a twenty-five-year-old daughter, and a twenty-year-old son.”

“Your daughter is the same age as me. Where is she?”

“In Boulder. She’s finishing a master’s in ecology and environmental biology.”

“Whoa. Smart. Does she live with you?”