Tess was ten minutes away. Nell went out onto the front step to wait.
Iris followed her and stood in the doorway. For a while she said nothing. Nell stared at the house opposite, where somebody was drawing their curtains.
“The pictures,” Nell said at last. “Who was he?”
“Someone I found online.”
“Does he know?”
“No.”
“You don't even know him.”
Iris shook her head.
Nell remembered the face. She had once saved every picture she'd been sent. A dark-haired man by a window. A man in a coat on a wet street. She'd looked at his mouth and imagined what it would be like to kiss him.
She pressed her hands together between her knees.
“When I talked about Sam, did you think it was funny?”
“No.”
“When I said I was scared of getting hurt again?”
“I didn't think it was funny.”
Iris sat on the step above her, leaving a space between them.
“I liked talking to you,” she said. “As him. You'd tell me things.”
Nell turned sharply. “You were pretending to want me.”
“I wanted you to talk to me.”
“That's not what I asked.”
Iris pulled at a thread on the hem of her dress. “I said things I shouldn't have.”
Nell looked back at the street. She didn't want Iris to repeat them. She'd sent things too. Private wishes, stupid jokes, whole nights that she now wished she could reach into the past and take away.
“Did you keep the messages?”
“I deleted the accounts. After.”
Nell closed her eyes. She didn't know how to believe that. She didn't want a phone in front of her or another evening spent finding out what Iris had done. She wanted not to have had to ask.
“Don't ever use anything I sent him,” she said. “Don't tell it to anybody. Don't send it anywhere.”
“I wouldn't.”
“You already did more than I thought you would.”
Iris's breath caught. Nell kept looking at the road.
“You brought me soup,” she said. “That first week.”
“You weren't eating.”
“You held the bowl while I drank it.”
“I remember.”
“Were you waiting for me to stop crying so you could go back to normal?”
Iris put a hand over her eyes. “I thought every day I should tell you. Then another day would go. You were getting better. I couldn't—”
“I was getting older.”
A car turned into the street. Not Tess's. Nell felt herself sag again.
“I loved him,” she said.
Iris looked down at her hands.
“I know there wasn't a man. I know it now. I still remember loving him.”
She wanted to throw the cake tin. It was on the pavement beside her feet, peeking out of the bag. It would make a good loud sound against the gate. Instead she pulled the bag closer so nobody walking past would kick it.
Iris reached down, then caught her own hand and folded it in her lap.
“I'm sorry,” she said.
Nell shook her head. Not because she hadn't heard it. Because she couldn't carry those words as well.
“You wanted me to stay here,” she said.
Iris wiped her face.
“Then the money,” Nell went on. “You didn't want me to have enough to leave.”
“I didn't want to lose you.”
“You had me. All those years.”
Iris stared at the garden wall. “You were going with him.”
“For three months.”
“You might have liked it.”
Nell let out a breath. That was the thing Iris couldn't bear. Not Nell hurt somewhere she couldn't help. Nell happy somewhere she didn't have to.
Tess's car appeared at the end of the street. Nell stood too fast, dizzy for a second.
Iris stood with her.
“Please don't leave it like this.”
“How should I leave it?”
“I don't know. Just—”
Tess stopped by the gate and got out. Her face changed when she saw Nell. She took the bag without asking a question.
“You ready?”
Nell nodded.
Iris came down the last step. “Tess, I need to explain.”
Tess put the bag in the car. “To her.”
“I tried.”
“Then let her go.”
Nell opened the passenger door. Iris stood by the gate with one hand against its latch.
“You can't send me the money and make this all right,” Nell said.
Iris's face crumpled again. “I know.”
Nell got into the car.
Tess drove one street away before she asked anything. Nell told her, stopping and starting, five months reduced to pieces she could get out of her mouth.
Tess pulled over at the next corner.
For a moment Nell thought she was going back. Instead she put the handbrake on and leaned across the space between them. Nell folded into her.
“I thought I was doing better,” Nell said.
“You were.”
“It's back.”
Tess held her tighter. “I know.”
They stayed by the curb until Nell could lift her head. Then Tess took her home to the flat, carried the bag inside, and put the cake tin on the kitchen counter.
It made the old familiar sound. Nell started crying again.