She could still smell it, the kerosene and the ocean, like she was back there. There was a reason she’d done everything she could for ten years to forget that night. Noelle stroked Miriam’s hair until Miriam stopped shaking from the effort of telling this story for the first time.

“He thought he had left me with no options except to meekly join the family business,” Miriam continued when her voice was steady enough. She wanted to pull herself into a little ball, but she let Noelle hold her instead. She wasn’t sure she’d get to the end of this without that warmth. “When, shockingly, I was disinterested in working for him, he threatened to cut me off from any family funds. I took him up on it. He thought I had nowhere to go, but I had Cole’s couch.”

“Your dad underestimated your support network,” Noelle said.

“He doesn’t love anyone, so he never takes into account that people might help me because they love me,” Miriam said. “Cole let me stay, and never asked why or pried. It was the only thing that kept me alive. I owe him…everything, for that time.”

“He’s a good egg. Strange, but good.” Noelle’s voice was warm. Miriam loved that Noelle understood Cole. “And that’s when you stopped coming here?”

Miriam nodded, a bubble of grief rising in her throat. “I was barely making it through every day. I felt like I was being held together by worn-out tape. I thought if I came here, I would have to talk about it with Cass and Hannah, Levi would try to make me process it…I couldn’t face any of them. It doesn’t make sense, but it felt like, if I came to Carrigan’s, my whole house of cards would collapse.”

“We don’t always make logical sense when we’re responding to trauma,” Noelle observed wryly, and Miriam laughed a little wet laugh. “If he hated you painting high-end gallery art so much, doesn’t he hate your new work even more, especially with your real name attached? How did you get him to leave you alone and let you have a career?”

“I knew that I needed to make art, to live,” Miriam said, “but I couldn’t paint. I would sit in front of the canvas and cry. I needed to do something else. I spent a lot of time wandering in and out of antique shops in Charleston, making friends with the owners, trying to fill my days. Eventually, I started buying things, little tacky trinkets. They reminded me of Cass, you know?”