Page 25 of The Last Letter of Rachel Ellsworth

Breathing in the scents of spice and roasted meat, she gave herself the time to anticipate as she admired the rain on the window, the lights flashing across the street, the sense of peace she felt. Finally, she lifted her fork and began to eat.

The lamb was tender, falling off the bone, the spices exactly perfect. The tomato salad could have been mushy, but it was fresh and flecked with fresh parsley.

She didn’t inhale food, ever, but she ate every single bite. Every last shred of meat. Every tiny cucumber, every corner of the pita, because it had turned out to be a pita. She thought of the people in the airportand the people in the shops, and her heart was lighter than it had been in years. Maybe decades.

It came to her softly, a question:What do you want your life to be?

Chapter Thirteen

Mariah slept hard.

Until she didn’t, and awakened from a dream about blue boxes of macaroni and cheese tumbling across a white floor, piling up in giant mountains, burying her.

She woke up gasping for breath, panicking, and for a long moment she had no idea where she was. Hospital? Nursing facility? Home? A crack of light between the curtains showed a streetlight, and she remembered.

London.

Forcing herself upright, she hung her knees over the bed and inhaled deeply. Slowly. In. Out. She focused on the streetlight, the patters of rain against the window. Better. In a moment, she was fine. Wide awake, but fine. Her performance watch, which she couldn’t help wearing even though she wasn’t performing anything, said it was just after midnight.

Grabbing her cane, she hobbled into the living room area. Veronica’s door was closed. It was safe to make a hot drink of some kind. On the counter were two boxes of tea, demerara sugar, hot chocolate, and a jar of instant coffee. Mariah thought wistfully of the apple-cider packets she kept at home, but she hadn’t asked Veronica to get any, so it served her right.

She was used to her mom knowing what she’d want, and when. Now she had to train someone to know.

Or maybe you could do it yourself,said a reasonable part of her brain. A part that sounded very much like her mother, who threatened to stop cooking for Mariah if she didn’t learn to cook. Mariah had insisted that she knew how to cook—pour the macaroni in the water and add the packet of cheese, or ask Marie Callender to do it for her. It made her mom laugh every time.

Despite not knowing her tastes, Veronica had brought back a decent variety of stuff. Mariah grabbed some yogurt and a couple of bananas, and made a cup of hot chocolate. She took it to the table by the window overlooking the dark square. Not terrible, the snack, but it left her restless. Below, a straggle of young people headed for the subway stop down the block, three or four knots of them, mostly together, it seemed. Partying, probably. One girl shouted out a laugh, and two of them ran in front.

God, how long since she’d been out for a beer with her friends? Centuries. A heat of longing pushed through her. Man. That was what she wanted. Out. Impulsively, she checked her phone to see if there were any bars or pubs close by, and she was rewarded with a long list. One was in the basement of the hotel, another across the street in the hotel facing, and a pub was just down the street. She looked down at her clothes, still rumpled from the trip. She changed into a sweater and some jeans, washed her pits and her face, and headed for the door. Her cane leaned there, and she hesitated. She’d stick out like an idiot if she had it, but she was kind of afraid to go without it.

Fuck it. She’d stand out, anyway, and she wasn’t going down to make friends. Just find a beer. A big cold English pint.

The first bar, in the hotel basement, was dead. A single middle-aged man sat nursing a whiskey, scrolling through his phone.

Nope.

Outside, a crisp breeze was blowing, and she shook her upper body slightly to stay warm, waiting for the light to turn even though there were barely any cars. Pedestrians brushed by her, most of them reassuringly young, probably younger than Mariah, if she were honest.Once the light changed, ticking loudly to count down the time, she joined the little stream. The bar in the posh hotel was too stuffy, and she didn’t even climb the steps.

Her phone took her to the Oat and Hand pub. The tables in front were empty, but people stood holding pints and smoking cigarettes outside, and her neck muscles relaxed. Yes. This was more like it.

It was not packed, but fairly busy. She found a place at the bar, and struggled to get up on the high chair, which gave her a moment of extreme embarrassment until the bartender said, “Bit of a jump, init?”

“Totally.”

“American,” he said happily. “What can I get you, love?”

“A pint,” she said, and looked for the taps. “Ale, something not too dark.”

He winked and tossed down a cardboard coaster. He was fit, his lats working beneath his T-shirt, arms nicely defined. Not too tall, hair dark and a little unruly. He carried back the beer with bright eyes. “Tab?”

She shook her head and pushed a ten-pound note toward him. Mariah took a sip of beer.

“Holy fuck,” she said aloud. It was cold and rich, ever so slightly bitter, but not hoppy, and it was one of the best five things she’d tasted in a year. She took another deep swallow.

The bartender grinned, dropping her change. “What brings you across the pond?”

It had been a while, but she recognized the glimmer in his eye. It stirred an almost forgotten response, across the back of her neck, down the sides of her belly. “It’s complicated,” she answered, “but mainly, I’m doing some research.”

He leaned on the bar, his arms taut, his hands clean. “Tell me about it.”