At first, Sofia had imagined Isobel stayed because she was braver, stronger, older. But as the years passed and Isobel’s letters grew colder, shorter, or sometimes didn’t come at all, something hardened in Sofia’s chest.

The first thing she did was stop explaining herself. Richard noticed something had changed, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what — and this ambiguity gnawed at him.

Somewhere in the kitchen, the tap was dripping. She tuned into it’s rhythm that kept her mind ticking on, that kept her functioning for another day.

She was twenty-one when she met him. It was early spring where bright daffodils bloomed in the graveyard soil and church bells chimed through a sky still tinged with winter. Isobel had been walking home from her part-time job at the bookstore, a place that smelled of musk and forgotten romance etched in the spines of old paperbacks. She wasn’t looking for anything. She never had. Wanting had always seemed like a dangerous pursuit.