They took the longest time to release my belongings to me. I might have skipped the step altogether, but the constable at the evidence desk said that Mallory insisted he do everything precisely by the book when it came to me. Of course he did.
Then came an overlong taxi ride home through horrid traffic, with Lock sitting in complete silence and Alice calling him every five minutes to find out why we weren’t home yet. We were just a minute or two from home when Lock finally did speak up.
“You won’t go with them?”
I stared out the window at the graying sky. “Not yet. I have something to do.”
He held my hand, bringing the back up to his lips, but he didn’t say anything more until we were at the house and the driver had been paid. I tried to run up the steps, and Lock used our still-clasped hands to bring me back to him.
“What is it?”
He rubbed his thumb over the top of mine.
“Sherlock.”
He looked up, holding his blank expression like a mask.
“I’m too tired to guess. Give me the slightest hint.”
His brow drew in again and he glanced at the door to our house, which was perhaps as far away from me as he could look. “For as long as I need. That’s what you said.”
For how long? he’d asked. His mother had just died. I told so many lies that day, and among them, I’d said I’d stay. For as long as you need. What he didn’t—couldn’t—know was how much more I needed him, and how selfish it was for me to need him at all. He was the only one I had left, really. Or would be, once I walked into my house and sent my brothers away. But I had to somehow convince myself that I was better off alone—or maybe that he was. And then I had to send him away.
That pain lanced through me again, the kind that came with the word “temporary.” And with him staring at my door, and people walking past us on both sides, I moved closer to him, and rested my head against his shoulder.
I wanted to say all those things that the lovers in Sadie’s books said to each other and hear Lock say them back to me. But I couldn’t speak for the pain. It pulsed along with the thought that something had just ended for us. And I couldn’t explain that. He was still with me and probably would be for the balance of the day, but when he slid his fingers into my hair and pulled me in closer, he still felt so far.
My eyes were hot and wet when I pulled away from him, so I glanced up and away, blinking them dry as I pulled him toward the front door. We walked in to a complete chaos that I was thankful for. Freddie and Sean were practically running circles around a pile of every suitcase and bag we had in the house, along with a few boxes. As Lock closed the door behind us, Seanie ran up the stairs to grab some completely unnecessary set of books from Michael’s shelves, which he tossed downstairs one at a time to Freddie to be packed.
Alice walked through the bare inches of space between the bags and boxes, closing them and taping them shut in a perfect dance with the boys. She smiled at me and handed me my phone. “I’ve packed you as well,” she said, pointing to the large blue bag by the staircase. “Check to make sure I got everything you want.”
“Michael?” I asked.
Alice’s smile fell a bit. “He’s still not awake. I’ve arranged medical transport as far as Brighton. Then I have a nurse who’s agreed to help the rest of the way. She owes me.”
A horn honked outside, and Alice twirled past us to open the door. She waved at a large rented lorry on the street. “Okay! He’s here. Start hauling everything down, boys.”
Seanie ran right between Sherlock and me to greet the driver, ripping my hand from his. I smiled, but when Lock wandered over to help Alice carry a rather large box, I caught myself holding my freed hand up to my chest.
Like a nostalgic idiot, I chastised myself, but still I couldn’t seem to shake this dark feeling. “The end,” I said aloud.
Leaving the house was just as chaotic as entering, full of shouts of “one last thing” and juggling bags and boxes out to the street. But I used the mess to kick my bag behind the door of Alice’s room, so it wouldn’t get packed off with the others. And I made sure I was the last one out the door, jumping into the front of the lorry just before it took off for the train station.
The driver was an old friend of Alice’s, who had once been an airline pilot, which meant the boys’ questions filled up the trip to Victoria Station. It also meant that we could leave the boxes behind with the driver’s promise to post them on ahead. And then Alice shoved a roll of pound notes into Lock’s hands and asked, “Could you take this one”—she shoved Seanie at Lock—“and buy us five tickets to Brighton? Two adult and three child?”
“With a connection to Lewes?” he asked.