But right here, with a warm bath and a book, and almond-scented bubbles and a cup of tea, and the sound of the wind through the trees instead of traffic and sirens and helicopters—well, she wasn’t going to think about it. Not right now.

Chapter 31

And Lissa did feel better when she woke up, after another surprising night’s sleep. It had to be the fresh air; every breath felt like she’d never properly opened up her lungs before. But then she’d woken up very early, light creeping through, and the fear had returned. She looked out the window at the greenery in the garden, trying to calm herself, then gave up and scrolled through Instagram until it was a decent time to get up.

Her first appointment wasn’t until later, so she popped into the little grocers and picked up some amazingly cheap eggs (she didn’t know they were cheap, she never bought eggs) direct from Lennox’s farm, some local butter and milk, and some sliced bread from the baker, and she had time to make herself some scrambled eggs on toast. The sun was rising earlier; there was a chill wind, but she discovered, out the back of the cottage, the small patio next to the wall was an almost perfect sun trap, warm enough to sit out on regardless of the wind.

She tried to block out what had happened with the psychiatrist the night before, just change the mental subject, and checked in with Kim-Ange, whose Instagram was full of her dressing up and wearing different hats in what looked suspiciously like the millinery department at Peter Jones, where they tended to take a rather dim view of that sort of thing. She missed her, suddenly, missed her old life completely. It was almost the weekend. They’d be up to all sorts. Then she looked at her case file for the day, and her heart skipped a beat.

She knew she wasn’t supposed to know. But seriously, you couldn’t avoid it. “Young (f), heart and lung transplant,” and the dates matched. They hadn’t pulled this place out of thin air. Not at all.

Cormac’s notes were very straightforward: “Brilliant!” he’d headed them up with. Lissa blinked. It wasn’t remotely brilliant, and this was hardly tactful.

She stood up and washed her dishes, then found herself making up a packed lunch—a packed lunch! Who was she? But then it wasn’t her fault there wasn’t a Pret a Manger for two hundred miles. She took a picture of it and sent it to Kim-Ange to make her smile: a cheese sandwich, augmented with something she found in Cormac’s cupboards that she very much hoped was homemade pickle. No tofu. No bean sprouts. No cronuts and no bento boxes. She added a couple of russet apples and contemplated buying a thermos and smiled, just a little, wondering who she was.