Sister Tessie grasped Kate’s hand. “You’re not running off are you? Stay with us for morning tea,” she insisted.

“I have so much work to do…”

“You have to catch up!” Sister Tessie said, exasperated, gesturing across the table to Tilly as though Kate hadn’t known she was there until that very moment.

“Tilly and I can catch up later.” They’d be working together day in and day out, sharing a twelve-by-twelve cottage for the next three months. And then there was the other, more important factor—she had absolutely zero interest in making small talk with Tilly in front of the nuns. She couldn’t do trivial. Not with Tilly.

She excused herself and started down the corridor of the convent, out the side door and through the small piles of fruits and vegetables the sisters had abandoned by the garden beds to greet Tilly.

“Kate!”

She pivoted before the garden gate.

“Wait a second!”

Tilly had her arms crossed, her hands wrapped around her ribs as though she were trying to hold herself together. “I just…” She released a deep exhalation as she rushed closer. “I just want to say how sorry I am that we lost touch.”

Kate’s heartbeat slowed to strong, pounding thuds. “Oh, gosh, don’t worry about it.” She waved a hand through the air. “These things happen. Nobody’s fault.”

“I know. But I’m still sorry. We should have tried harder.”

It was true. They’d seen each other just once after boarding school, in their first year of university, right before the semester began. After lunch and a movie, Tilly had followed her back to the university campus. They’d gone up to Kate’s dorm room. Her roommate had yet to arrive, and Kate had vibrated with a stupid sense of hope that, away from Lords, with a bedroom door they were permitted to close, something could happen. She’d even put fresh sheets on the bed, obsessed with the thought that her deepest fantasies—maybe Tilly’s, too—could be realised in the privacy of the city.

Ever since they’d started venturing up to the convent belltower at night to kiss, she’d been confused about what it was that Tilly had wanted. That day on campus, Tilly had been different, almost nervous sitting next to Kate in the cinema. Kate thought it had been her newly cropped hair that had thrown Tilly, or her collared shirt that gave off the exact vibe she intended. But up in the dorm, Tilly had broken the news that she was going to defer university to work as a missionary in Papua New Guinea for a while. She was leaving in two weeks, she’d said, and she was terrified of what Kate would think.

After they’d talked it through, Kate had walked her down to the tram stop. In the darkness of night, they’d hugged long and hard, crying silent tears into each other’s shoulders. As the St. Kilda to Flinders Street Station carriage had disappeared with Tilly aboard, Kate had known deep in her heart that was the last time she’d let herself see her best friend.