Page 37 of Yours, For Good

"Coffee?" I asked, grabbing her cup from her place on the table.

"Yes, please," she said, right as Lizzie got up as well.

"No, none of that!" My old nanny said. She took the cup from my hands and ushered me to the table. "I will treat you both today."

"Please, Lizzie," I said. "All I did was offer coffee. I promise it won't hurt me to do something."

She tsked and pointed a strict finger toward the table, making a show of what was expected from me. I sat with a smirk on my face.

Nora leaned close to me and spoke in a low voice. "She didn't let you help with making breakfast either?"

"She did not," I said in the same tone.

"She let me help, before you made it here."

I raised an eyebrow. "What are you implying?"

"You're being pampered," she muttered, a teasing gleam in her eyes. "And by extension, she'll pamper me today."

The theme carried through when, after breakfast, she forbade us from cleaning up and pushed us out the door.

"Go for a walk," Lizzie insisted. "Remember what you liked about this old town. Maybe you'll come here more often if you do."

She winked. Nora snorted.

We put our coats on and walked out the door, on the way to the strip of shops a few blocks away.

"Wow." Nora snickered. "Has she always spoiled you like this?"

"Not when I was a child. Or a teen, for that matter. It was a… later change."

"Let me guess. More or less around the time you gifted her the house?"

I gave her a sideways glance. "You know how people sometimes do weird things when they're hurt? Like they'll ice you out because they don't know how to talk about it. Well, I find that people can do weird things, too, when they're grateful. Like they don't know how to express it."

I dug my hands into the pockets of my charcoal gray wool coat. Dark clouds hovered above us, heavy with snow, but chances were high that nothing would happen here so close to the coast.

Nora burrowed in her jacket. It was a dark berry color, with a texture that looked rougher than standard wool. She wore black clothes underneath, except for the puffy, mustard scarf around her neck.

She rubbed her lips together. "I think that, when you're truly, deeply grateful, it feels like no words suffice."

I nodded, my eyes on the Christmas decorations up on the light posts, and on people's front yards. "I'll be honest. In cases like that, I'm not sure how to respond, either. Saying you're welcome doesn't seem enough. For either party."

Duty and gratefulness had long been a Gordian knot in my soul. These days, one of the threads had Nora's name on it.

I glanced at her. I couldn't tell her we were tangentially talking about our situation, and how difficult it was to imagine Nora might learn who Mr. B. really was, and how it might change things between us. Charity was messy, like she had said in an email a while ago… not to add the whole thing with hiding his— my— identity.

"You changed the course of her life." Nora lifted serious, warm brown eyes my way. "Of course she wants to show you she's thankful."

"I don't need her to—"

"But if she wants to…"

I sighed. "Maybe. I just wish it didn't make it so awkward. It makes things complicated. I do these things because it's the right thing to do. Because it feels good to do good. Altruism isn't real— even when I do it because of my morals, I'm already getting something out of it. I'm glad it means a lot to other people, too, but I shouldn't get infinite thanks when it didn't really cost me hardships in the first place."

I didn't want Nora to change with me if she learned I paid for the clothes she wore.

She arched an eyebrow at me. "Giving her a house that had been in your family for decades upon decades didn't cost you, so she doesn't need to be thankful?"