MasukThey left early Saturday morning.Nora was up before the alarm anyway, standing in their bedroom doorway at six holding her rabbit and looking at them like they'd overslept and the day was wasting.Maya packed the car while Dominic did Nora's breakfast and by half seven they were on the road, Nora in the back with her rabbit and her cup, already asking questions about where they were going and how long and whether there would be biscuits."Probably biscuits," Dominic said."What kind," Nora said."Don't know yet," Dominic said."I like the round ones," Nora said."I know you do," Dominic said.Maya drove. Dominic's idea, said he'd rather look out the window than watch the road, and she understood that without him having to explain it further.He was quiet most of the journey. Not the bad kind of quiet. Just inside himself, going through whatever he needed to go through before they got there.Maya let him.Nora filled the silence from the back seat without any help, talking to her rabb
A call came on a Sunday morning.Dominic's phone was on the kitchen counter, buzzing while he was in the garden with Nora, both of them crouched down looking at something in the grass that Nora had decided was important.Maya saw the screen from the window.Unknown number. She left it.It rang off then rang again straight away.She went to the back door. "Dom. Your phone."He came in with Nora on his hip and picked it up and looked at the screen and something moved across his face that Maya clocked straight away."You know that number," she said.He didn't answer. Just looked at it ringing in his hand.It stopped.Then a text came through. One line.He read it and put the phone face down on the counter."Dom," Maya said."It's my brother," he said.Maya looked at him. In two and a half years she could count on one hand the times Dominic had mentioned his brother. Daniel. Older by four years, different in every way that mattered, last time they spoke was before any of this started and
The neighbour's name was Gerald.He lived two doors down, retired, spent a lot of time at his front window or out front doing things that didn't really need doing just so he could be where he could see the street.He was friendly enough. Always said good morning. Always commented on Nora when he saw her. Told Maya once that they'd been a good addition to the road which Maya took as a compliment even though the way he said it suggested he'd had opinions about previous additions.But Gerald asked questions.Not rude ones. Just steady. Every conversation had at least one slipped in natural and easy to miss if you weren't paying attention.Where did you say you were from again?And what did you do before you moved here?Family nearby is it.Maya answered everything with the versions of the truth that Webb had helped them build. Solid answers, nothing that fell apart under pressure, history that held up if anyone looked.But Gerald kept asking and Maya kept noticing and after a while the n
Nora at two and a half was a whole personality in a small body.She had opinions about everything. Which cup she drank from, which shoes went on first, whether the butter on her toast went all the way to the edges which it always had to or there would be consequences. She said no the way some people said hello, automatically and without much thought, and she said why after everything Dominic told her until he ran out of answers and had to make things up."Why is the sky blue," Nora said one morning at breakfast."Because it reflects the sea," Dominic said.Maya looked at him over her cup."Why," Nora said."Because they made a deal a long time ago," Dominic said.Maya put her cup down. "Don't," she said."Why did they make a deal," Nora said."Because they were friends," Dominic said."Why," Nora said."Eat your toast," Maya said.Nora picked up her toast and looked at the edge of it. "The butter didn't go all the way," she said.Maya took the toast and buttered the edge and gave it b
They didn't want anything big.Talked about it one evening after Nora went down, sitting on the floor in the front room because they still hadn't got round to buying a sofa, and both of them said the same thing at the same time without planning to.Small, Maya said.Small, Dominic said.They looked at each other and that was the whole conversation.It happened on a Saturday in spring.Registry office in town, the small one on the high street with the blue door that Maya had walked past a dozen times since they moved and always looked at without letting herself think too much about it.Four people there besides them and Nora.Maya's mother in the green coat, same one, probably always the same one.Ray and Marta who had driven two hours and arrived the night before and slept in the spare room and Marta had been up at six making breakfast for everyone.And Alice, who Maya had called on a feeling and who had driven over and stood in the registry office in a good blouse looking like she wa
The letter came on a Thursday.Plain envelope, no return address, just their names on the front in print. Maya picked it up off the mat in the morning and looked at it and knew from the way it felt in her hand that it was from Webb.She put it on the kitchen table and left it there.Made tea. Fed Nora. Put a wash on. Came back and looked at it again.Picked it up and opened it.One page. Webb's writing, short and straight the way he was in person.She read it once then read it again then put it down flat on the table.Dominic came downstairs in his work clothes, new job starting early, grabbed his jacket off the hook."There's a letter," Maya said.He stopped and looked at her face then at the letter on the table. Came over and picked it up and read it standing there.She watched him read it.He put it down and stood there a moment."Brent," he said."Twenty two years," Maya said. "The man above him got more."Dominic stood very still."It's done," Maya said. "Webb says it's fully don







