“We’ll figure it out. I think I saw a mountain ash out back of the hotel, and that’s the same diff’ as rowan. In the meantime, I’m dead on my feet—well, not literally, considering I’m lying down and still breathing.”

“I don’t know if I can sleep.”

“I suppose we could take turns standing guard,” Siobhan said, “but what’s the worst they’re going to do? Tie our hair into fairy knots? They better have a damn light touch, because if I wake up and catch them at it, I’ll have more than words for them, one-armed or not.”

Lizzie nodded. Unless they’d drunk a lot—as Siobhan had last night—they were both light sleepers. It often felt like a curse, because musicians on the road didn’t always get the best accommodations, but it would be useful now.

“But I’m not getting undressed,” she said.

Siobhan smiled. “You’ll have to at some point or you’re going to smell louder than you play.”

“Smells don’t have volume.”

“So sue me. But first help me get my top off.”

Lizzie felt terrible all over again when Siobhan’s injured arm was revealed in all its painful, bandaged glory.

“This sucks,” she said.

“No,” Siobhan said, “being dead would suck. This is just inconvenient.”

“You make a much better invalid than I ever would.”

“It’s one of my strong points, ranked just under my humility.”

Lizzie laughed. “Luckily, I got all the talent.”

“I’d hit you, but I’m too tired and I only have one working arm. But consider yourself on probation.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Siobhan shook her head. “Now you’re just being mean.”

Jilly

I was having lunch by myself in the greenhouse studio when I heard a tap on the glass pane of the side door that leads into the garden. Looking up, I saw it was Geordie and waved him in.

“Hey, stranger,” I said. “You want some coffee? It’s in the thermos,” I added, pointing to the corner of the room by the little sink Sophie and I used to clean our brushes.

“Thanks,” he said. “Do you want some?”

“No, I’m good.”

There was a time when we were forever dropping in on each other, at all hours of the day and the night. That hadn’t happened for the longest time. For me to go anywhere was a major production, and these days Geordie always called ahead. I suppose that small change might have reflected a much larger one, and in some ways it had. We weren’t as much an everyday part of each others’ lives anymore. But the good thing was that when we were together, it was like nothing had changed at all.

Geordie poured himself a cup from the thermos and brought it over to the empty chair beside my wheelchair. He had a sip of his coffee and grinned at me.