Ben picked up his phone.
“I'm not going to the shop.”
“Ben,” Mara said.
He put the phone in his pocket without calling. “Not tonight.”
Tess looked at the bread on the counter. There was cheese beside it, and olives in the little dish. They had been about to eat. Ben had torn a piece off while they were standing together, and she had felt useful again.
“I can clear this,” she said.
Mara turned toward her at once. “Stay. Please.”
Tess reached for the paper she'd tipped out of her bag. She put it in a pile. Then she put the envelope on top. Her fingers knew how to tidy even though she couldn't think what should happen next.
“I'm sorry I took it,” she said.
Mara's shoulders lowered a little.
Tess saw that and stopped packing.
“I am,” she said. “But I didn't keep it from you.”
“I know.”
“You let me think I'd lost it.”
“I wasn't going to do it for this long.”
“You could have stopped.”
Mara rubbed her eyes again. Ben had turned away from them. He stood by the window looking down into the street.
“I didn't know how,” Mara said.
Tess remembered the question she had asked on Sunday. Do you want Ben? Is it just the ring? Mara had held her hand, fed her, let her do the buttons on the dress.
“You told me yes,” Tess said.
Mara looked up.
“When I asked if it was only because of the ring.”
“I know.”
“I was trying to help you.”
“I know you were.”
Tess pressed the paper flat with her palm. She wanted to throw it. Not at Mara; just across the room, so something could be as untidy as she felt.
Instead she pushed it into the tote.
Ben came back from the window. He held out his hand.
“Give it to me.”
Mara looked down at the ring.
“Please,” he said. “I can't watch you hold it like that.”
She opened her fingers. He took the ring and closed his hand around it.
For a moment Tess could see both of them on the day he'd described at the bench, choosing it together. She wished she couldn't.
“We can talk,” Mara said.
“Tomorrow.”
“Tonight. If you go, you'll just—”
He looked at her, and she stopped.
“I need to be somewhere else tonight,” he said.
Mara nodded, then shook her head, as if neither answer was possible.
“The room's paid,” she said.
Ben glanced at the photograph. “We're not doing Monday like this.”
“We can change things.”
“Not tonight.”
He took his jacket from the chair. Tess moved out of his way. She hadn't realised until she did it that she had been standing between him and the door.
Mara followed him into the hall. Tess stayed in the kitchen, listening without wanting to.
“Where will you be?” Mara asked.
“I'll tell you when I've worked it out.”
“Will you come back?”
“Tomorrow. We have to talk.”
The door opened. Ben said goodnight to Tess from the hall. She answered, too softly for him to hear perhaps. Then he was gone.
Mara came back. Her face was wet now. She held her hands against the cardigan she was wearing, not Tess's green one, a plain dark one with stretched pockets.
“Don't go too,” she said.
Tess looked at the chair where she'd sat on Monday. She had wanted Mara's arms around her then, and still did, in some absurd part of herself that hadn't caught up.
“I can't stay.”
“We don't have to talk about it.”
That almost worked. They could put on the kettle. Mara could give her the better half of something. Tess could sit at the table until the room felt familiar again.
She lifted the bag.
“I've got to go.”
Mara stepped back. She didn't tell Tess not to leave again. She stood beside the counter while Tess put on her coat and took the last envelope from the table.
At the door Tess reached into her pocket for her phone. Cal had asked whether she was finished.
She typed, Something happened. I need to go home by myself. I'll speak tomorrow.
Then she put it away without waiting for an answer.
Mara was still in the kitchen when Tess closed the door. The little dish of olives remained untouched.