When Emer had come home exhausted from the hospital, guilty for snapping at patients, unable to stop herself from being too clinical, Orla reminded her she had to have boundaries.
‘I couldn’t do what you do, Em,’ she’d said. ‘I’d be in bits every day. You’re special.’
Yes, she wanted to believe her sister was with the angels, because in some small way it meant Orla was still with her, inside her head, giving her endless advice.
What should I do, Orla? Give me a sign.
She took out her mobile phone, considered calling Lynsey. But what should she say? Your aunt is too difficult. I’m taking the next ferry off the island. Where would she go then? Back to Ireland? The thought of having to move in with her dad and Sharon was enough to make her put the phone back in her pocket. She’d have to stick with Susannah.
The door of the diner opened and she looked up to see Henry, the restaurant-owning sculptor. As soon as he saw her sitting in the window, a big grin spread across his face. He came right over and sat down next to her as if they’d arranged to meet all along. It reminded her that since Lars had tried to call her the day she’d arrived on the island, he hadn’t sent her one voicemail or text. Maybe he’d finally given up on her? She tried to push the thought to the back of her mind.
‘Hey! How you doing?’ Henry asked her. ‘Mind if I join you?’
Why not? She’d no one else to talk to on the island.
‘Sure,’ she said.
The waitress came over and he gave his order. ‘Crab roll with fries, Shirley, please. And my usual coffee.’ He beamed at Emer. ‘Say, you want something to eat?’
Shirley shook her head, giving Henry a long face. ‘She’s one of them vegans, Henry! Ain’t nothing she can eat.’
‘What about some home fries?’ Henry suggested. ‘Shirley makes the best on the whole island.’
Emer succumbed to temptation.
‘Say, how’s Susannah getting on?’ Henry asked, as soon as Shirley went off to fill their orders.
Emer bit her lip. She wanted so much to talk to someone who’d known Susannah before she got sick. ‘I think she’s in a lot of pain, to be honest,’ she said.
Henry nodded, as if she was confirming what he already knew. ‘Guess that comes with the cancer, right?’
‘I’m trying to persuade her to take some of the pain-relief medication she’s been prescribed, but she won’t. Says it messes with her head. She’s every day either at the typewriter or reading books.’
Shirley came over with Henry’s coffee. He poured in cream and sugar before stirring it several times.
‘But I can see she’s suffering, and she’s very… irritable,’ Emer added.
‘Sorry to hear that,’ Henry said, looking right into her eyes. Today the brown of them was almost amber. Emer felt herself blushing. ‘She’s always been a bit of a fierce one,’ Henry added as their food arrived.
‘How do you know Susannah?’ Emer asked Henry.
‘Well, I mean most folk know each other on the island,’ he said. ‘It’s a small community, you know, and Susannah was our town librarian for years. Like I told you before, I used to go to her reading group as a boy.’
‘Oh yes, I forgot,’ said Emer.
‘But I was also friends with Lynsey before I left for art school and she went to Salem,’ he said.
‘Oh, right.’ Emer was surprised. Henry looked to be in his thirties, and Lynsey was a woman in her late forties, perhaps even early fifties. She had to be at least ten years older than him.
‘We used to hang out in The Sand Bar sometimes, when she came home to visit from Salem, and after I’d been fishing with my dad.’
‘You’re a fisherman too?’ Emer asked.
‘Used to fish when I was a boy, like all the men in my family,’ he said. ‘But the life wasn’t for me. I hated it. Put my father in an early grave.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Emer said.
‘It was Lynsey who said I should go study art,’ he said. ‘Don’t think I would have had the confidence to learn to sculpt without her encouragement.’
Emer looked down at Henry’s hands as he tucked into his food. They still looked like working men’s hands. Broad and rough. She guessed sculpting could be as tough on them as fishing.
‘Have you heard of the artist Orla Feeney?’ she asked him, still looking down at his hands.
‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘Name’s familiar. Who is she?’
‘My sister.’
She was tempted to confide in him, tell him about Orla, and how the art world had lost such a great talent but it was too hard to speak about her in the past tense.
‘Say, why don’t you help Susannah with her typing, whatever it is?’ Henry spoke up. ‘With the two of you working on it she’d get through it faster.’
Emer doubted Susannah would ever let her near her writing again. ‘She has this ancient typewriter. I don’t know how to use it.’
But Henry clearly thought his idea a grand solution and continued to persuade her. ‘Do you have a laptop with you? Yes? Well, do it on that. It’ll be easier than the typewriter and you can save it.’
‘She told me it’s private stuff,’ Emer said.
Henry shrugged his shoulders.
‘You can only offer,’ he said. ‘If she’s in that much pain, she might let you. Then you can find out what exactly it is she’s typing.’ He winked at her.
Emer still felt resistant. ‘But that’s not really what I’m here to do.’
Henry leant forward across the table, waved one of his fries at her. ‘You’re here to help, aren’t you? She’s your patient. Getting dug into all her paperwork is the only way you’ll get to give her some relief.’ Henry popped the fry in his mouth.
‘I suppose I could suggest it to her,’ Emer said, almost as if to herself. It had taken a stranger to point it out to her. Her role now was to help her patient in whatever way it
