The notebook was one of the cheap ones their father used to buy from the shop by the harbour. Its red cover had faded almost to pink. Daniel had filled the first few pages with drawings of the house, each made from a different place along the shore.
In every drawing, the upstairs window was lit.
She turned a page. Here was the kitchen table, with its short leg and the folded paper that kept it steady. Here was the apple tree they had climbed the summer before their mother died. Here was a girl standing at the garden gate, a suitcase beside her.
Nora touched the edge of the drawing. The girl’s face was unfinished, but the suitcase was hers. Even the broken strap was there, hanging at the same crooked angle. She looked back towards the hall, where she had left it less than five minutes ago.
Above her, a floorboard creaked.
“Daniel?”
No answer. She closed the notebook carefully and set it where she had found it. Outside, the water had covered the low wall beside the road. The island was an island again. There would be no way across until morning, and no one to tell her whether that was a good thing.
She had spent the whole journey imagining what she would say to her brother. There had been versions in which she was angry, and versions in which she was kind. In none of them had she stood alone in their childhood kitchen, afraid to climb the stairs.
The kettle began to sing.
Only then did she notice the stove was warm. Someone had put the water on before she arrived. Someone had heard the latch, or seen her from that upstairs window. She reached for the second cup and held it between her hands, as if its small, ordinary weight could keep her steady.
“I’m here,” she said, more quietly this time.
From the room above came the soft scrape of a chair. Then footsteps, slow and unmistakable, crossed the landing towards the stairs.
