“Years,” Nory agreed.

“It’s not changed much.”

“I’m glad to hear it. Some things shouldn’t change. It’s nice to have something solid to cling to. Something dependable.”

“Is that what you’re looking for in life? Something dependable?”

Oh, great! Now I sound super boring. Oh well, better he finds out that I’m a square bear now, to avoid disappointment later.

“Could be. I think fast and loose is overrated. When I first left Hartmead, I was drawn to everything that was its opposite. But it wasn’t so long before I began to yearn for roots.”

“So, you opened a bookshop.”

“A secondhand bookshop! The least fast-lane kind of business in retail.”

“Perhaps there’s more Hartmead in you that you’d care to admit.”

“There was more to it than that.” Nory wondered how much she should say. How much Isaac already knew. “I lost a friend; we all lost a friend. His name was Tristan. It was a few years ago. You’d probably remember his face if you saw a picture; he was always with us, part of the gang. I was already feeling my own kind of lost when he died, and I realized that if I didn’t find some way of anchoring myself, I’d just float away. Does that make any sense?”

Isaac nodded. It was hard to see his expression in the dark, but Nory felt like he understood.

“I remember Thom telling me he was worried about you for a while.”

“Really? I can’t imagine that.”

“He didn’t go into details, but he’d asked me if I’d help out at the nursery for a few days if he had to go to London.”

“When was this? I don’t remember him ever coming to see me.”

“He didn’t in the end. I think your mum talked him out of it. It was a few years ago—six years? Maybe seven?”

“And you remember that?”

Isaac shrugged and rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, I knew it must have been bad for Thom to think he might need to go and get you.”

Nory thought back to that time. It was a sketchy period in her mind, blurred at the edges and laced with a kind of panic that even now made her chest constrict when she thought about it. She hadn’t realized her family had known she was struggling; she especially wouldn’t have expected her brother to notice.

“And what did he think he was going to do? Throw me over his shoulder and bring me back to Hartmead?”

“I honestly don’t know. He’s a good mate, but he’s not known for his tact, so I imagine he would have been met with resistance from you.”

“Yes, he probably would. But I didn’t need to be rescued, not by him anyway.”