Nate was waiting outside the café on Wednesday morning.
Lena saw him through the glass before she unlocked the door. He had two coffees and the envelope tucked under one arm.
She stood on the other side of the door for a moment. He lifted a cup, then thought better of it and lowered his hand.
She turned the key.
“We make coffee here.”
“I know. It was stupid.”
“Yes.”
He looked past her into the empty room. “Can I come in?”
“I'm opening. I haven't got long.”
He followed her inside. She left the door unlocked but kept the sign turned. Outside, the quay was filling with early workers. Jo was in the back bringing a delivery through the side door.
Lena hung her jacket on its hook and took down her apron. Nate put the envelope on the counter.
“All of it,” he said.
“How much?”
“Six hundred. I counted it.”
“Give it to Daniel.”
“I tried. He wasn't at the house when I went past.”
“You could have called.”
“I wanted you to know I wasn't keeping it.”
She looked at the envelope. There was nothing remarkable about it. Cream paper, a fold at one corner where Nate had gripped it last night.
“Why did you take it at all?”
“Because I was angry. Because he made me feel like somebody hanging around for a tip.”
“So you took the tip.”
“Yes.”
He pushed it toward her. “Ask him what he paid me for the first time.”
Lena's hands went still on the knot of her apron.
“What first time?”
Nate looked away. She stepped around the end of the counter before he could put anything else between them.
“You don't get to come here and say that, then leave me to find out. What did he pay you for?”
“He lent me money.”
“For what?”
“A ring.”
Something inside her dropped. She looked at his empty left hand, although she knew that wasn't where the ring would be.
“Whose ring?”
“Yours.”
The delivery trolley squeaked in the kitchen. Somebody called to Jo about a missing box of milk. The sounds were too ordinary to belong to this moment.
“When?”
“Before I left.”
“You borrowed money from Daniel to buy me a ring?”
“I'd ordered it. Paid some. I couldn't pay the rest. It was nine hundred short.”
“An engagement ring?”
“Yes.”
He said it without trying to soften it. She could see the cost of the word in his face.
“You never asked me.”
“I know.”
“Did he pay you to leave?”
“No.”
“Because that's what you just made it sound like.”
“I know. It was a nasty thing to say.”
“Was the loan anything to do with the job?”
“No. I paid him back a year later. It was a loan. That's all.”
She moved back to the counter. Her coffee machine needed warming. The tables needed wiping. Five minutes earlier she had known how to start the day.
“You made me think he bought you.”
“I wanted you to be angry with him. I shouldn't have.”
“I'm plenty angry without help.”
“Yes.”
She picked up one of the coffee cups because she needed something in her hand. It wasn't hers. She put it down again.
“Where's the ring?”
“I've still got it.”
“All this time?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He shook his head. “I don't have a good answer.”
“Try an answer without deciding whether it's good.”
“I couldn't sell it. Then after a while it was in a box, and not opening the box got easier.”
She almost laughed. That was so much worse than a beautiful answer. A ring in a box while she had spent a year wondering what she had done wrong. He hadn't even had to look at it.
“Bea called me last night,” he said. “She told me Daniel asked, not you. I know you didn't invite me.”
“You knew that when you spoke to him yesterday.”
“Yes.”
“Then you came here anyway.”
“I was already here. And I wanted to see you.”
She looked at him. She wished he would stop giving her things that were true and useless.
Jo came out of the kitchen. She glanced at Nate, then at the coffees.
“We open in ten,” she said.
“I'll go,” he told her.
Lena surprised herself. “I'm finished at four today.”
He turned back.
“If you want to tell me why you left, I'll listen. Once. Bring the ring if you want, but I'm not trying it on.”
“I wasn't asking you to.”
“You weren't asking me to the first time either.”
He took that without answering. “The seawall?”
“By the old steps. Four fifteen.”
He nodded, picked up the unwanted coffees and left. The envelope stayed on the counter.
Jo waited until the door shut.
“A ring?”
Lena nodded.
Her sister came closer. “Oh, Len.”
“Don't. I have to work.”
“Come here first.”
Lena let her. Jo put both arms around her, solid and warm, without asking for the whole story. For a few seconds Lena rested her chin on her sister's shoulder and felt twenty-three and twenty-eight at once.
Then the first customer tried the door.
Jo let go. “Wash your face. I'll open.”
Lena went into the little bathroom, turned on the cold tap and held her wrists under the water. She wasn't crying. She was angry that she might.
She took out her phone.
Nate returned your money. It's here. He told me about the ring loan. We need to talk tonight.
Daniel answered before she had dried her hands.
Yes. I'll be home. I'm sorry you heard it like that.
She read the apology twice. It didn't deny anything.
By half past ten she had spilled a cup of tea, written one order on the back of another and mistaken Jo's voice for a customer's. Her sister finally moved her to the garden tables, where she could walk between each interruption and breathe.
A young couple sat under the pear tree. The woman had a new ring and kept turning her hand to look at it. Her partner pretended not to notice, then reached across the table and turned it for her so it caught the sun.
Lena brought them their breakfast. The woman looked up, delighted by some private thing, and thanked her.
Lena smiled back.
There had been a ring. A real ring, paid for, held somewhere in Nate's hand. The life she had imagined once hadn't been an invention entirely hers.
That didn't make the end of it kinder.
At noon Bea arrived with a bag of rolls from the bakery next to her shop. She stood beside the counter until Lena looked at her.
“Jo asked,” Bea said, raising the bag. “I'm not bribing you.”
“I wouldn't turn down bread either way.”
Bea set it down. “Can we go outside for a minute?”
Jo nodded them toward the side door before Lena could ask.
They stood beside the delivery bins, where the smell of warm bread competed badly with yesterday's rubbish. Bea didn't try to find a beautiful place for an ugly conversation.
“Nate told me what he said this morning.”
“Did you know about the ring?”
“No.”
Lena believed her. Bea's face had the blunt surprise of a person whose brother had once again failed to mention something important.
“I told him if he has anything else to say, he can say it without making you run between him and Daniel.”
“I've arranged to see him.”
“Oh.”
“Not because you want me to. Because I want an answer.”
“I know.”
Bea picked at a small tear in her paper bag.
“I wanted you to be happy getting married,” she said. “I thought a conversation might make it easier. I should have asked you myself.”
“Yes.”
“I won't do it again.”
Lena looked toward the harbour. The two coffees Nate had bought were still on her mind. An attempt to be thoughtful that had arrived already wrong.
“Stay for lunch,” she said.
Bea blinked. “Are we allowed?”
“I'm angry with you. You still need to eat.”
“All right.”
They went inside. Bea chose the soup. Lena gave her the heel of the warm bread, the piece they both usually wanted, and let that be all she could give for now.