Chapter 6
Chapter 6:
Something was wrong with Lara, and neither of them could name it.
It wasn’t any single thing — not the photos, not the resignation, not the suitcases arranged with the precision of a woman who’d already made a decision. It was the aggregate. The sum of small departures that, taken together, formed a shape neither Callum nor Declan wanted to look at directly.
Declan opened his mouth — he had questions, several of them, none of them polite — but before the first syllable left his lips, Callum’s phone erupted into sound.
Callum glanced at the screen.
Bridget.
He answered on the second ring, and her voice spilled out — small, breathless, pitched at the exact frequency of a woman who needed rescuing.
“Callum, the power just went out at my house. I don’t know what happened. I’m all alone and it’s so dark and I don’t — what should I do p>
Declan, who could apparently hear Bridget’s distress through the phone from four feet away — or, more likely, had developed a Pavlovian response to the cadence of her helplessness — was already reaching for his jacket.
“Don’t worry, Bridget. I’m coming right now p>
“We’re coming,” Callum corrected, pocketing his phone with the efficient motion of a man who’d already mentally exited the conversation he was standing in.
And just like that, the questions about the suitcases evaporated. The unease about the photographs dissolved.
Bridget Nolan’s circuit breaker had tripped — or hadn’t, who could say — and the gravitational pull of her distress was, as always, stronger than whatever Lara might be feeling, doing, or planning.
Lara watched them collect their keys and wallets and coats with the choreographed efficiency of men responding to an emergency. She didn’t try to stop them. She didn’t roll her eyes or sigh or make any of the small, futile gestures of protest she might have made a month ago. She simply stood by the kitchen counter, arms folded, and watched them leave.
The front door closed. The car engines started — one after the other, a two-part overture to departure. Tires on gravel, fading to silence.
Lara counted to ten. Then she picked up her own phone and called Miriam.
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The phone rang three times — Miriam always answered on the third ring; she believed picking up sooner conveyed anxiety and picking up later conveyed indifference — and then her aunt’s voice was there, warm and gruff and smelling, somehow, of chamomile tea and practical advice.
“Lala. It’s late. What’s wrong p>
Nothing was wrong.
Everything was wrong. Lara sat on the kitchen stool, pressed the phone to her ear, and told Miriam the truth she hadn’t told anyone else.
“I’m getting married p>
The pause that followed was long enough to contain several small lifetimes.
“I — married?” Miriam’s voice climbed half an octave, teetered there, and came back down with visible effort. “To whom p>
“The arrangement Mom and Dad set up. In Thornfield. I’m going home p>
Another pause. Lara could hear Miriam processing — the particular quality of silence that meant her aunt was choosing her words with surgical care, the way she chose medication dosages: precisely, with full awareness of side effects.
“Lala…
Do Callum and Declan know p>
“No.” The word was quick, clean, non-negotiable. “And I need you to keep it that way, Miriam. Please. I don’t want complications p>
The silence on the line shifted from surprised to something deeper. Sadder.
“Oh, sweetheart.” Miriam’s voice softened in a way that made Lara grip the phone harder, because tenderness was the one thing that could undo her right now. “Since you were little, you’ve been their whole world.
Anyone with eyes could see it. Those two boys — men, I suppose, though they don’t always act like it — they’ve been in love with you since before they knew what the word meant.” A pause. “I always thought you’d choose one of them. I really did p>
Lara swallowed. The kitchen was very quiet. She could hear the refrigerator humming, the tick of the clock above the stove, the faint creak of the house settling around her like a living thing.
“There’s nothing to regret,” she said, and her voice was steady, which was a kind of victory. “We’re not compatible p>
We’re not compatible. The phrase was so clean, so adult, so entirely insufficient to describe the wreckage of the past month.
But Miriam heard something beneath it — twenty years of raising this girl had given her an ear for the frequencies Lara hid behind — and she didn’t push.
“I always knew you’d go home eventually,” Miriam said quietly. “I just didn’t think it would be so soon.
Come see me before you leave, Lala. Please. I’ve watched you grow up. If you go to Thornfield…” Her voice caught, just briefly. “Who knows when we’ll see each other again p>
Lara smiled. It was the first genuine smile she’d produced in days, and it ached. “I will. I have gifts for you. I’m going to miss you p>
They talked for a few more minutes — the easy, aimless talk of two people who loved each other and were running out of shared geography — and then Miriam hung up with her usual briskness, as though lingering on the line would be an admission of sentiment she couldn’t afford.
The kitchen was silent again.
Lara was still sitting on the stool, phone in her lap, when it rang a second time.
A different number. She glanced at the screen — Robert Haines, her former creative director.
“Lala! Quick thing. One of your designs won the Beaumont Award. The trophy arrived today. Since you’ve already resigned, I asked Bridget — she was your mentee, wasn’t she? — to run it over to your place p>
Lara blinked. The Beaumont. She’d submitted that entry four months ago, back when she still cared about things like professional recognition and industry awards and the trajectory of a career that now felt like it belonged to someone else.
“That’s — thank you, Robert p>
“You earned it.
Gorgeous work.
Anyway, Bridget should be there any minute — ”
The doorbell rang.
Of course it did.
Lara looked at the front door, then at the phone, then at the front door again, and felt the particular exhaustion of a woman whose exits kept being blocked by the same person.
“She’s here,” Lara said.
“Perfect! Congratulations again, Lala. You’ll be missed p>
He hung up. The doorbell rang a second time, and Lara could already picture what she’d find on the other side: Bridget Nolan, holding someone else’s trophy, wearing someone else’s expression of innocence, ready to perform.