The needle bit into his waist at a shallow angle. Will worked his thumb and forefinger up the flexible tube, dispensing every drop of the precious morphine tartrate into his bloodstream. The injection stung for a few seconds, but then he couldn't tell if it ached or not.
He tossed the empty syrette back in the drawer. A second dose followed the first. Warmth flowed through him like sunlight, like molten gold. Through his belly, across his chest, into his heart and out to the rest of his body. It washed away the pain in his finger, quelled his shivering. He could breathe again. Even here, underwater.
The second syrette slipped through his fingers. It hit the floor tube-first, bounced, and then
There was something important he had to do.
Something about a barge on the Thames. Something about the Eidolons, about a price. Something about a war.
A gnes's first birthday.
Candles and Liv singing, cake and streamers and a delighted, bewildered little girl. That's what today was meant to be. Instead, it dawned to find Marsh standing just outside the door of what had been his home, a key in one hand and an envelope in the other.
His shirt stuck to his back and shoulders. It bunched up when he moved, like a bedsheet twisted during fevered sleep or frantic lovemaking. Covering the final mile on foot—lest the taxi wake Liv—had left his covered skin moist with sweat. Yet the clamminess of predawn had chilled the exposed skin of his hands and face. The end result was a cold sweat.
It had been early when he finally abandoned the pretense of sleep. He'd gone upstairs and rummaged through the many empty Milkweed offices until he'd found a fountain pen and stationery. At first he'd intended merely to post a letter to Liv. But the date brought a new rawness to Agnes's death, ripped the scabs from that half-healed wound, leaving him tender and unprotected. The reality of the empty offices caught him unaware, forcing him to accept the reality he'd disregarded for months.
The offices were empty because of him. Milkweed had been decimated because of his mistake. Because there was no reasoning with the inarticulate rage he felt.
The same rage that had become a hammer pounding on the grief wedged between himself and Liv, driving it until they'd been thrown apart. She couldn't live in the margins of his agony. She needed her own space to grieve.
Now he stood in a sterile gray sunrise in front of his home. (His home? Liv's home?) He looked from the key to the envelope and back again, unsure of what to do.
His stomach gurgled. He wondered idly if Liv would plant new tomatoes next summer. Marsh had considered taking a cot out to the garden shed, or even sleeping in the Anderson shelter, though only in passing. It was cruel to stay so near to Liv. He had become a mirror for her sorrow, a looking glass that framed her loss.
As always, the envelope contained most of his pay. He saved what he could for Liv; his expenses had been minimal since he'd started sleeping at the Admiralty, and Liv needed the money more than he. She had a mortgage to pay. She'd rejoined the WAAF—once, he'd seen her leaving the house in her uniform—but he knew doing one's part for the war effort didn't always pay the bills.
Extra cash wouldn't dispel the grief that had taken root inside her, nor would it smooth the harshness that had taken root in corners of her eyes. But it would ensure that she could feed and clothe herself, and that she could keep the house if she chose to do so. Though he couldn't understand how she'd stayed there as long as she had, surrounded by hints of a family life that might have been. Liv had always been the stronger of the two of them.
The envelope also contained a letter. The first he'd written since before the new year. His chicken-scratch handwriting was an unworthy vehicle for laying bare tumultuous thoughts and feelings. Unworthy of Liv, too; it felt disrespectful, somehow, to send her something so coarse. He wished he had Will's penmanship, the elegant hand that came naturally to moneyed people.
He dropped the key back in his pocket. The cold metal flap over the mail slot creaked when he lifted it. He pushed the envelope through the slot, listening for the
Marsh was back at the walk, his hand on the wooden gate that had replaced the wrought iron, when the door opened behind him.
“Raybould?” Liv's voice made everything a song, even when she was confused and tired.
He stopped, suddenly feeling anxious, ashamed, cowardly. Like he'd been caught with his hand in the biscuit tin. He was afraid to look at her, but hungry for it, too.
Marsh turned. Liv stood in the doorway, one hand on the door and the other clutching the belt of a flannel robe. Her hair was shorter than he remembered. Curlier.
“Liv,” he blurted. “It's early.”
“I couldn't sleep,” she said. “Today, it's ...”
He sighed. “Yeah.” He shifted his feet, unsure of whether he should release the gate and step forward in order to see her better. He hadn't intended to speak with her, but now that she stood before him, he didn't want to drive her back inside.
She looked thin. “Are you eating well enough?” he asked, nodding to the envelope at her feet.
The hem of her robe lifted slightly, revealing the bare ankles above her slippers as she shrugged. He'd kissed those ankles, long ago.
“The rationing,” she said.
“Yeah.” He couldn't meet her eyes.
A long hush fell between them. Birds twittered to each other. Somewhere, a lorry grinded its gears.
“I've miss—,” she said, at the same moment he said, “I'm sorr—” Another hush. Six years long.
Liv bit her lip. “Do you ...” She opened the door a little wider, unable or unwilling to voice the invitation.
His hand hovered on the rough wood of the gate.
The chasm between the gate and the house felt ten leagues wide, and his shoes full of lead shot.
Only when she had closed the door, and they were alone together, could he meet her lovely, lovely eyes.
“You're shivering,” she said.
“I ... I've made so many mistakes,” he said.
“I've missed you terribly.”
“You're my compass, Liv. I understand that now.”
“It's my fault. I shouldn't have sent her away.”
“Hush, love. We did it together. Hush.”
“I feel so useless.”
“I wanted so desperately to punish them. The people who killed her.”
“You can't. It was done by people we'll never know.”
“Well ...”
Liv's light touch, a fingertip on his lips.
“What?”
Quiet laughter, warmth in the dark. “You were talking in your sleep again, love.”
“I'm sorry, Liv.”
Her breath tickled his earlobe. “Don't be. I've missed it more than you know.” She laced her fingers through his.
“I'm glad I came back. I'm sorry it took so long.”
“So am I.”
That evening, Marsh studied the map of Europe tacked to Stephenson's wall. It bristled with more pins and flags than a hedgehog had spines.
He sipped from his tumbler. Brandy washed across his tongue and burned on the way down; it soothed his throat.
“I thought we'd decided this plan was dead,” he said in a voice made hoarse by daylong conversation with
