Strangely, she couldn’t summon interest in that just now. How odd that such pleasure should make it hard to think or care about serious matters. She only wanted to wear a foolish smile and bask in the aftermath as if she were lying on the grass beneath the sun.

It had been a long and confusing day. Hæra might as well reward herself with this. She let the lazy smile cross her face and slowed her heartbeat, her metabolic system, drifting into her rest state. Everything would keep for now. Somehow, she would find a way to see Madeleine tomorrow. Jonathan would understand if she didn’t work on the farm.

The sun might come out again. That would be nice.

“I have found you,” the whale sang. “Let us begin.”

She should leave.

The notion seemed inconceivable. Madeleine couldn’t believe she was entertaining it after being on Jorsay for two days when she’d planned for a month.

But now she sat in the tatty armchair of her hotel room nearly at midnight, staring at the airline app on her phone. Changing her ticket would be expensive, but it might be worth it to escape.

Or she could text Becca. Call her, even. There was something about hearing a human voice, especially when it belonged to someone who loved you. Becca would love Madeleine even if she knew the truth. Heck, Becca probably already knew, based on remarks she’d been dropping for years. Remarks like Everyone deserves to be happy and There’s nothing wrong with wanting something different.

It would be the next best thing to a priest’s absolution. After all, hadn’t Madeleine thought often that there were differing interpretations of homosexuality in Catholic doctrine? That some progressive Catholics approved of it?

In her memory, her father lifted a scornful eyebrow. That’s convenient, isn’t it? he seemed to ask. Looking for excuses when it’s about you. Her mother nodded in agreement while David shrugged indifferently.

“It’s not just about me,” Madeleine muttered, and her eyes widened as she heard herself say it. She hadn’t meant to.

But she wasn’t wrong, was she? It wasn’t just about her. It was about Arjun and Jeremy too, whom she’d snubbed yesterday in the café. (Had it only been yesterday?) It was about other people she’d met throughout the course of her life. Like her former student Ava, who’d spoken earnestly to Madeleine about wanting to become a nun. Now she was in graduate school and happy with a girlfriend.

Ava had been more honest with herself than Madeleine had been decades earlier, and now she was happy. It was the funniest thing: Madeleine had never condemned her or even feared for her soul. For all her knowledge of doctrine, she simply could not imagine a world in which God punished sweet, earnest Ava for finding a little happiness.