She replaced the failing chair beside the machine with one that supported her back.
When Arthur saw it, he smiled.
“Good choice.”
“I made it myself.”
“I noticed.”
She rested a hand on the chair.
“I can be relieved about the money and angry about why it exists.”
Arthur nodded.
“You don't owe anyone a prettier feeling.”
Nora looked at him, then laughed.
“You've been talking to June.”
“She's expensive in opinions.”
“Worth it.”
“Usually.”
They both glanced toward the door as if June might appear and defend her rates.
That evening, Nora told Maisie the bills were steadier now.
Her daughter asked whether she still needed to save the foil from lunch.
Nora's eyes filled before she could stop them.
“No, bug. You can if you want to use it for something. But you don't have to save every piece because you're afraid we won't get another.”
Maisie looked down at the neat stack in her drawer.
“Can we use it for an art thing?”
“Of course.”
They spent Saturday making a crooked silver moon for Walter's vacation painting.
Nothing about the moon was economical.
It was enormous, wasteful, and exactly the size Maisie wanted.
Their first trip to Maine happened in October.
Nora checked with her medical team, planned the journey with enough breaks, and packed more carefully than she had for any holiday in her life. It had been years since travel meant going toward pleasure instead of work, illness, or a funeral.
Maisie packed Walter, three sketchbooks, and a swimsuit Nora gently explained might not be the most useful item on a cold coast.
“You never know.”
“You can keep it.”
“And the jellyfish?”
“We'll negotiate with them when we arrive.”
Arthur did not join the trip.
He had been invited for another time, but Nora wanted to see Evelyn's life without all the missing years sitting at the same table. He understood. It still hurt. He told June that honestly and did not tell Nora in a way that would ask her to change the plan.
On the morning they left, he carried their bags to the car and handed Maisie a folded map.
“Phones stop working sometimes,” he said.
Maisie examined the paper.
“This one doesn't even start.”
He laughed.
“I'll show you.”
They spent five minutes tracing the route with a finger. Maisie was interested despite herself. Nora watched them and thought how strange it was that a man could build bridges for decades and still be learning how not to rush a twelve-year-old through a question.
Evelyn met them outside the small airport with Beth beside her.
Maisie ran first this time.
Evelyn caught her, laughing, and looked over the child's shoulder at Nora with a happiness so unguarded that Nora had to stop walking for a second.
The apartment above the pottery studio smelled of paint, coffee, and salt. There were shelves full of bowls that did not match and plants that leaned toward the window as if trying to escape into better weather. A photograph of Thomas stood near the books.
Nora paused beside it.
“He looks kind.”
“He was,” Evelyn said.
“Did he know about me?”
“Yes.”
“All of it?”
“As much as I knew.”
Evelyn picked up the frame.
“Every May, he'd buy flowers. He never called it an anniversary. He'd just put them in water and say we didn't have to do anything else that day.”
Nora looked at the photograph with sudden affection for a man she would never meet.
“I'm glad you had him.”
Evelyn's eyes filled.
“So am I.”
Maisie discovered a narrow shelf of children's books in the guest room.
“Were these for me?”
Evelyn came to the doorway.
“Some are new. Some I've had a long time.”
“Why?”
“I liked them.”
Maisie looked at her, recognizing an incomplete answer without demanding the rest.
She chose a book about a mouse who wanted to sail and took it to the window seat.
That afternoon, Evelyn showed them the harbor. Maisie stood at the edge of the pier, looking at ropes, gulls, boats, and water that moved differently from a river. The wind pulled her hair across her face.
“It looks bigger when you're in it,” she said.
Nora smiled.
“You aren't in it yet.”
“I mean the place.”
“I know.”