Luke had been an uncomplicated man and with him, I’d walked towards safety again and again.
‘Weren’t we lucky?’ he said.
‘So lucky.’
‘Don’t cry that it’s over –’
‘– smile because it happened.’ My voice faltered.
‘About “that night”。’ He hesitated over the words. ‘You were right about it being healing. I’d come a long way anyway, but I feel more, I guess, peaceful now.’
‘Me too. Losing Yara, it’s always there, like a … a spiky ball of torn metal, in my flesh. It’s part of every decision I make and every relationship I have. But recently it’s got … smoother? Smaller? I’ll always love her, but her loss is starting to fold into my story.’
‘We’ve a lot to be thankful for.’
That was the right way to look at things.
‘Enjoy Transylvania,’ he said.
89
I did enjoy Transylvania.
Sort of.
Taryn and Timothy were gas company, the hills and lakes were stunning, the people and food were delightful but I experienced two parallel versions of everything. One was the reality, but in the other I was accompanied by an invisible hologram of Quin, who offered opinions, thoughts, contradictions and directions.
Every step I took, every bite of food I ate, he was with me.
So much so that, on the second last night, lying on the strange sheets, in a strange guest house, in a strange, beautiful land, I got up out of bed and, suddenly certain I was doing the right thing, sent an email, asking if he’d meet me when I got home.
I was blurry about what exactly I hoped for – maybe just to check that he was okay? – but, feeling calmer than I had in a while, I slept well. The next morning I lunged for my phone, hoping he had replied – but there was nothing.
It was still early though – maybe he hadn’t woken yet.
On that day’s hike, as we moved in and out of coverage, I kept checking. Still no reply from him. He could be away working. Sometimes his job was so intense that everything else got parked.
But by the time my plane landed at Dublin Airport, I had to face it: I wasn’t going to be hearing from him.
Deflated and confused, I was no longer sure that that was even what I wanted. I felt as if I missed Quin more in Romania than in Dublin – which made no sense, other than to demonstrate that, over three months on, I still hadn’t a clue what was right for me.
It wasn’t all bad, though. Since marking Yara’s anniversary with Luke, there was definitely a deeper healing. The loss had softened and all of my bitterness towards him had evaporated.
There were even fleeting moments when what I secretly called My Important Thoughts and Feelings shrank down to nothing. Looked at in a cosmic sense, my life wasn’t remarkable or important, it simply was.
In those glimpses, everything appeared exactly as it should be: beautiful and bad; painful and good. Wanting things to be different would change nothing. I’d been given what I’d been given and my only job was acceptance.
… But there were other times when I went on Kallie Lampart’s Insta, poring over every post, looking for clues about Luke and her.
I had an ally in Claire, which wasn’t necessarily healthy. This became clear the day after my return from Romania, at Molly’s birthday tea party. Claire, in a performatively over-starched “garden party” type of dress, greeted me with cucumber sandwiches and a cheery, ‘Three weeks since the last photo of him and a horse!’
‘What’s this now?’ Helen’s antennae had pricked up. She lumbered towards us, her hand on her lower back, as if she were two years pregnant instead of fourteen weeks.
‘Nothing.’ I was hasty. She had nothing nice to say about Luke. Ever.
But, too late, Claire was explaining, then Helen was scrutinizing Kallie’s grid.
‘Costello doesn’t like having his photo taken, that’s obvious,’ she said. ‘But there’s nothing here to say they’re not together. This Kallie is a Tragic who’d post a shit ton of “Me and my gal pals out drinking strawberry daiquiris” whenever she gets dumped –’
‘You know nothing about her,’ I protested.
‘I’m only pregnant,’ Helen declared hotly, ‘not blind! The evidence here says she’s still Costello’s girl.’
The thought made me want to cry. ‘They’re probably out on his deck,’ I admitted. ‘Smoking hash, dancing to the Doobie Brothers, having a great old time.’