‘You didn’t find Spencer?’ he asked.

Anna frowned, confused. ‘What?’

‘You were angry with him for leaving.’

It all came back then, how she’d rambled on the last time she’d called. Oh, God… What a fool she’d made of herself. He deserved some kind of explanation. ‘I am. I was… He’s not coming back. I know that now.’

There was a soft exhalation at the other end of the line, not so much a sigh but a gesture of recognition. ‘Are you better off without him?’

One corner of her mouth curled up in a twisted kind of smile. Even though he was wrong, that Spencer hadn’t left her of his own free will, she liked the way this man phrased it; he didn’t tell her she was better off but asked for her opinion on the matter. ‘No,’ she said truthfully. ‘I’m definitely not better off without him.’

Another breath… sigh… Whatever it was. He understood this too.

‘Will it always hurt this much?’ she asked.

‘Probably.’

She almost laughed. God, it was refreshing not to be given a platitude or a proverb.

‘He died,’ she said softly, not aware she was ready to tell this story until the words left her mouth. ‘He was thirty-one, and he died.’

‘Yet you phoned him,’ he said, clearly perplexed.

‘Yes. Stupid, isn’t it? Wanting to talk to someone who’ll never be able to hear you again, who’ll never be able to talk back.’

He let out a hollow laugh. ‘No.’

Anna closed her eyes as more tears surged down her face. Oh, the relief… ‘You have no idea how lovely it is to be able to say all of this, to be honest, and for someone else to understand.’

‘Then tell me more.’

Her eyes snapped open again. ‘Oh, I don’t think I should… I mean, I’ve invaded enough of your time already. You must have other things—’

‘I don’t,’ he said, cutting her off. ‘Not right now.’

‘But why would—?’

‘Because I wish I’d had someone.’ There was a pause, a moment of heaviness. ‘Someone I didn’t know. Someone who wouldn’t judge me… I won’t judge you, Anna.’

No, he wouldn’t. She knew that already. She’d known that before she’d picked up the phone this evening, hadn’t she?

So Anna talked. She told him about the day Spencer died, the darkness afterwards. She told him about the horrible time she’d had at the beach with Spencer’s family that day. And he listened. He didn’t say anything, didn’t comment, until she finally ran out of steam. ‘Sorry,’ she said again when she’d run out of words.

‘Why do you keep apologizing?’

‘Because… because normal people don’t do things like this,’ she replied.

‘Maybe they should.’

‘Even though I’m bothering you?’

‘You’re not.’

She wrinkled her nose. ‘I’m not?’

‘I’d have told you if you were, and then I’d have hung up.’

Anna couldn’t help laughing. She didn’t know much about this man, but she knew enough from his direct, no-nonsense answers that this was the truth, and for some reason that made it funny.