I drove to the garden center. I knew Steph was working and she might not be able to take a lunch break with me, but I had to see her. She’d want to know about Joan, and it wasn’t something I wanted to tell her in a text message.

I found her outside the stockroom, where she was dealing with a pallet of potting soil. She was surprised to see me. “Hi! What are you doing here?”

I didn’t know how else to say it. “Joan died this morning.”

She looked at me blankly for a second, then put down her clipboard on top of the potting soil and pulled me into a hug. “I’m so sorry,” she said.

I wrapped my arms around her waist and buried my face in the crook of her neck. I took a deep breath. She smelled like plants and soil, alive. Joan should still be alive. She hadn’t finished whatever she was making in Grandpa’s old office. When Grandpa had died, it had been awful but expected. He’d had cancer and we had time to say goodbye. This was different. It felt like a mistake. How could she be dead? I hadn’t seen her body. I couldn’t think of her as a body.

Steph’s hand stroked my hair and I pressed myself closer to her. I was crying, my tears dampening the material of her T-shirt. There was a deep ache in the pit of my stomach, and I knew it would become a convulsion, a retching up of my disbelief if I didn’t control it. I had to control it; I was in public. I crumpled the back of Steph’s T-shirt in my hand. I shuddered in her arms, and she held me tighter until the shuddering stopped. I raised my head from her neck and she ran her thumb across my tear-streaked cheeks.

“I’m so sorry,” she said again. Her eyes were wet. She kissed me gently.

I kissed her back. Softly at first, and then I became aware of the pressure of her breasts against mine and the slightest suggestion of her tongue against my lips. The kiss deepened. I felt as if kissing her were the most vital thing in the world. I needed to do it, to taste her open mouth, and I only had to push the tiniest bit for her to respond.

It became a hungry kiss. My teeth on her lips. Her hands in my hair, holding me to her. The world disappeared, and there was only this connection between us, so real it felt like a physical creature, ravenous. All we could do was feed it.

And then like an ax shattering glass, Lisa’s voice behind us: “What the fuck are you doing?”