I’ll have to be quick, the meeting could end any minute now, so I try to focus as I climb the stairs. There’s thousands of dollars’ worth of equipment in the edit suite, but everything is either too bulky or pointless in resale terms; how much would I even get for used gear that’ll be obsolete when the new model comes out next year? Anyway, I have to travel light.

I start up the computer and click through some images for the folder marked superseded. Little Sophia is there, cute and round in corduroys that don’t fit, trying to smile between those puffy cheeks. She hasn’t been to China, not yet. Hasn’t developed near-perfect Mandarin or a taste for ducks’ tongues and snail porridge. Just a sweet kid still under her mother’s thumb. She looks back at me, not really alive, not really breathing, but nearly; chubby little Sophia Tyburn seems to say there’s nothing here for me.

I consider what to do with Mrs. Tyburn’s archive. I’ve only gotten through a fraction of it. Would destroying the rest be the next best thing to finishing the job? Slap-dash but kind, or unspeakably cruel? But I decide that even she can light a match, and the next batch of photos and letters to burn will have to be her own doing. I’ve done enough so that her past can be whatever she wants, and left the rest in case she thinks remembering is actually worthwhile. I’m still not sure it is.

Past-making isn’t my business anymore. I leave Mrs. Tyburn’s keys on the table by the door, her past still imperfect in the attic, where it’ll probably stay that way. Between Nick’s IT “malfunctions” and banking errors, and the Duchess’s ID, I have everything I need to mix myself up a new future.

Little rowboats nestle together, red bottoms pointed up to the big blue sky between the tide and the Oceanic. I pull one away from the huddle, turn it upright, and rescue the oars from the ground. I’ll row myself out to Appledore and wait for the tourist boat to hitch a ride back to Portsmouth.

This is the break. It’s my turn to make a promise, and try my best to keep it. I’ll live with not knowing, like other people live with grief. I’ll let the part of me that’s suffering shut its aching throat and die. I’ll let it wash over me. This will be my retirement, the time when I’ll learn to want something new, even if nothing ever wants me back.