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Saturday mornings had acquired a degree of organisation in Emily’s house that Emily considered both necessary and largely theoretical.
By half past nine, Bronwyn had showered, eaten breakfast, packed an overnight bag and placed it neatly beside the front door. Roark had eaten half his breakfast, abandoned the other half, discovered that he could not find one of his trainers, found the trainer under the dining table, then announced that he could not find the charger for his headphones. Frank was collecting them at ten.
Emily stood at the kitchen island with coffee in one hand and her phone in the other, waiting for her assistant to update her about a meeting the next Monday.
“Mum.”
“No.”
“I haven’t asked anything yet.”
“You’re going to ask me where something is.”
Roark stopped halfway into the kitchen. “Have you seen my new hoodie?”
Emily looked up. The hoodie was neatly folded, in plain sight, on the kitchen counter.
Roark followed her gaze. “Right.”
Emily returned to her email. “If you two intend to arrive at your father’s without causing me reputational damage, please can you finish packing.”
Roark disappeared again. Bronwyn remained where she was, looking down at the books in her hands.
“This isn’t mine.”
Emily made a noncommittal sound. Bronwyn crossed the kitchen and placed one of the books beside Emily’s coffee. It was small, bound in white cloth, with silver lettering pressed neatly into the cover.
WHITE NIGHTS
Emily stared at it for a moment.
“It was with my reading-list books,” Bronwyn said. “I thought maybe you put it there.”
“I have never knowingly purchased Dostoevsky.”
“Yeah,” Bronwyn sighed, “I know.”
There was something faintly insulting in the speed of the answer.
Emily picked up the book. It was surprisingly pretty, though she supposed that was the point. Thick cream paper, narrow ribbon marker, the sort of edition designed for people who liked owning books almost as much as reading them. There was a small number printed inside the cover.
“Limited edition,” Bronwyn said. “You probably shouldn’t leave it lying around.”
Emily turned another page, then stopped.
Andrea.
A few nights earlier, she had been sitting on Emily’s sofa with one bare foot tucked beneath her, searching through her bag with increasing irritation. She had emptied the contents onto the cushion beside her, found three pens, a packet of almonds, her keys, a charger, several receipts and an old Runway pass she had apparently forgotten to throw away.
Her book had not been among them.
Emily had listened to the resulting complaint with only partial attention because Andrea had been wearing one of Emily’s shirts and very little else.
White Nights. That had been it.
“I think it’s Andrea’s.”
Bronwyn glanced at the cover. “She reads Dostoevsky?”
“Andrea reads everything.”
That much Emily had learned quickly.
Andrea read on the subway, although Emily considered that an efficient way to miss one’s stop. She read plays on Sunday mornings and left them face-down on her coffee table in a way that offended Emily’s sense of order. There was a stack of books beside the sofa in her apartment because, according to Andrea, the shelves were full. Emily had once pointed out that this was generally considered a reason to stop buying books.
Andrea had looked genuinely confused by the suggestion.
Her office was worse. Books were wedged between issues of Runway, stacked on the credenza and occasionally hidden beneath proofs. There was a signed manuscript in a glass case behind her desk from an author Emily vaguely recognised and had therefore assumed was important. Andrea had spent several minutes explaining why it mattered. Emily had spent those same several minutes watching her talk.
She had not retained much about the manuscript.
She opened it somewhere near the middle and read half a paragraph. There was a great deal of anguish occurring beside an embankment. Someone appeared to be suffering because a woman loved somebody else. Emily read another few lines, decided everyone involved needed considerably firmer boundaries and closed it.
Her phone buzzed. Andrea.
Dinner tonight? I can come over after seven.
Emily answered immediately.
Yes. Bring good wine.
Three dots appeared.
I brought good wine last time.
It was terrible.
It was thirty dollars!
The dots returned, disappeared, then returned again.
Fine. I’ll let the French woman bully me in the wine shop.
Emily smiled despite herself.
“You’re smiling an awful lot today,” Bronwyn said from the doorway, unceremoniously dumping her bag onto a bench, “Why’s that?
Emily put her phone face down. Before she got a chance to tell Bronwyn to mind her own business, Roark walked into the kitchen as well, seemingly having packed for three months away rather than just a weekend.
Emily gave him a look. Roark stopped beside the island and noticed the book.
“What’s that?”
“Apparently Andrea’s.”
He picked it up before Emily could stop him, inspected the cover, then flipped through it.
“It’s tiny.” He flicked through it, “Is it good?”
Emily took it from him.
“I sincerely doubt it.”
Bronwyn laughed. The buzzer sounded through the house.
Roark immediately headed for the door. “Dad.”
“Bag.”
He doubled back, grabbed it and continued towards the hall. Bronwyn collected hers more sensibly. Emily followed them to the front door, checking automatically that Roark had his phone, Bronwyn had her racket, both had coats despite their insistence that they would not need them, and that nothing essential remained scattered around the house.
Frank was waiting downstairs.
“Sunday evening,” Emily said.
“We know.”
“Phones charged.”
“Yes.”
“And Roark.” He turned. “Brush your teeth.”
“Mum.”
The lift doors closed on Bronwyn laughing.
She went back into the kitchen. Andrea’s book was still on the island beside her coffee. Emily picked it up, carried it into the living room and placed it neatly on the coffee table where Andrea would see it that evening.
Then she paused.
She opened to the first page, read the title again, and frowned at the subtitle.
A sentimental story from the diary of a dreamer.
“God help me,” Emily muttered.
She closed the book and went upstairs to change the sheets.
By 7:15, Emily had showered and tidied the house in a way that made her seem way more in control of her household than she actually was.
The house was quiet in a way it rarely managed when the children were home. There was no television leaking noise from another room, no cupboard door being opened and left that way, no footsteps overhead that suggested Roark had remembered something urgent immediately after getting into bed. Emily had put music on low in the kitchen simply because the silence had started to feel excessive.
She had also ordered dinner.
There were limits to domesticity after all.
Andrea arrived at 7:28 carrying a bottle of wine in one hand and a paper bag in the other. Emily opened the door and looked at the bottle first.
Andrea held it up. “The woman in the shop assured me this one wouldn’t offend you.”
“We’ll see.”
“Good evening to you too.”
Emily kissed her before Andrea could continue, one hand briefly settling against the back of her neck. Andrea smiled into it, then leaned in again when Emily started to pull away.
“Better.”
“Come inside.”
Andrea stepped past her and shrugged off her coat. She was wearing dark jeans, a cream sweater and the expression of someone who had successfully escaped Runway before nine on a Friday and considered it a personal victory.
Emily took the wine.
“What’s in the bag?”
“Dessert.”
Emily looked inside. “Cannoli?”
“See? You’re delighted.”
She carried everything through to the kitchen while Andrea followed, already taking off her watch and setting it beside the fruit bowl as though she lived there. Emily noticed these things now. A hair tie left around the bathroom tap. Andrea’s charger occasionally plugged in beside Emily’s bed. A cardigan draped over the back of a dining chair until Monday morning. They were small incursions and Emily had discovered, somewhat inconveniently, that she liked all of them.
Andrea leaned against the island while Emily opened the wine.
“How are the kids?”
“Hopefully thriving at Frank’s.” Emily reached for two glasses, “Roark is becoming just as chaotic as Frank, if I’m honest.”
Andrea laughed. “I like him.”
Emily poured a small amount of wine into one glass, tasted it and paused. Andrea watched her carefully.
“Well?”
“Acceptable.”
“That woman is getting a Christmas card.”
Emily poured two proper glasses.
Dinner arrived shortly afterwards, and they ate at the kitchen island rather than the dining table because Andrea had started opening containers before Emily had finished setting anything out. Emily objected once, without conviction, then took the chair beside her.
They talked about work because they always did eventually. Andrea had spent most of the afternoon dealing with a feature that had somehow survived four rounds of edits while continuing to be structurally useless. Emily had attended a meeting during which three people had used the phrase brand storytelling within ten minutes and had briefly considered walking into traffic.
It was nearly nine by the time they carried their glasses into the living room. Andrea settled into one end of the sofa, drawing her legs beneath her, while Emily went back for the bottle. She had made it halfway across the kitchen when she remembered the book.
“Andrea.”
“Mm?”
Emily looked towards the living room. “Did you lose a book?”
There was a short pause.
“Probably.”
“Helpful.”
“I lose books all the time.”
“Yes, I’m beginning to understand why.”
Emily picked up the bottle and returned to find Andrea watching her.
“What book?”
Emily nodded towards the coffee table. Andrea followed her gaze. The reaction was immediate.
“Oh my God.”
Before Emily could say anything, Andrea had put down her wine, reached for White Nights and picked it up with both hands.
“You found it.”
“Bronwyn found it.”
“Where?”
“In the library. It had somehow migrated into her reading-list books.”
Andrea was already turning it over, checking the spine with an amount of concern Emily considered inappropriate for an object made primarily of paper.
“I thought I left it in a cab.”
Andrea opened the front cover and looked relieved enough that Emily almost laughed.
“I really thought I’d lost this.” Andrea ran her thumb across the edge of the pages. “This edition was a gift.”
Emily’s attention sharpened slightly. “From whom?”
Andrea glanced up. Emily held her gaze.
“Nigel.”
“Oh.”
“Were you jealous of a book for half a second?”
“No.”
“You were.”
Emily handed her the wine glass.
“Drink.”
Andrea took it, still smiling, and Emily went back to the kitchen for the bottle she had forgotten on the counter.
When she returned, Andrea was reading.
Emily stopped in the doorway.
Andrea had shifted further into the corner of the sofa, one knee drawn up, the book open in one hand and her wine resting against the other. Her hair had started to fall loose around her face. She looked entirely comfortable, entirely absorbed, and far too pleased with herself for someone who had come over for a date and immediately abandoned her girlfriend for nineteenth-century Russian misery.
Emily watched her for several seconds, which Andrea completely failed to notice. That, more than anything, was endearing.
Emily walked over and sat beside her.
Andrea looked up. “Sorry.” Andrea marked her place with one finger. “I wanted to check where I was.”
“You’ve read it before.”
“Several times.”
Emily stared at her. Andrea’s mouth twitched. The blonde leaned back against the sofa and took a drink as Andrea read another few lines.
Then, without warning, she said, “‘I shall be dreaming of you all night, a whole week, a whole year.’”
Emily looked over. Andrea’s eyes were still on the page.
“That sounds exhausting.”
Andrea laughed softly. “It’s romantic.”
“It sounds clinically concerning.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“Well,” Emily shifted just a little bit, “So are you.”
Andrea stopped reading. Emily took another sip of wine. There was a brief silence.
Then Andrea looked at her over the top of the book. “That was very smooth.”
Emily reached over and lowered the book. Andrea let her.
“Are you actually going to read all evening?”
“No.” Andrea smiled. “You’re jealous of Dostoevsky now.”
Emily took the book from her properly this time, folded the ribbon between the pages and set it carefully on the coffee table.
“I’m considerably prettier than Dostoevsky.”
“I’m not sure that’s a difficult contest.”
“Good.”
Emily shifted closer. Andrea’s expression changed slightly. There was still half a glass of wine in her hand, which Emily took from her and set beside the book.
“What are you -”
Emily moved across the sofa and settled into Andrea’s lap with the easy familiarity they had acquired faster than either of them had expected. Andrea’s hands found her waist automatically.
Dating Andrea had contained less performance than she had anticipated. There had been dinners and reservations and drinks in places where people watched who entered with whom, but there had also been this. Andrea barefoot in Emily’s living room. Takeout containers still sitting in the kitchen. A limited edition of Dostoevsky abandoned beside two unfinished glasses because Emily had decided she had received enough competition from Russian literature for one evening.
Andrea tipped her head back against the sofa.
“You know,” she said, “the book does get quite good.”
“I’m thrilled for it.”
“You might like it.”
“I won’t.”
“You haven’t read it.”
“I know myself.”
Andrea’s thumbs moved lightly against Emily’s waist. Emily looked down at her and kissed her. There was no need to rush. That was another thing she was still getting used to. Andrea stayed exactly where she was, one hand sliding around Emily’s back as the kiss deepened, and Emily let herself settle into the weight and warmth of her.
When they broke apart, Andrea glanced towards the coffee table. Emily caught it immediately.
“Don’t.”
Andrea started laughing. Emily kissed her again simply to make her stop. The book remained closed for the rest of the night.
Emily woke to sunlight, an empty space beside her, and the faint sound of something clattering downstairs. For several seconds she remained where she was, one arm beneath the pillow, trying to determine whether the noise justified intervention. Then came the unmistakable hiss of the coffee machine, followed by silence.
Andrea.
By the time she came downstairs, Andrea had abandoned whatever attempt she had made at breakfast and was sitting at the kitchen island in one of Emily’s dressing gowns with White Nights open in front of her.
Emily stopped on the final step.
“Seriously?”
Andrea looked up. “Morning.”
Emily walked into the kitchen and inspected the coffee machine. It was midway through the unnecessarily elaborate process for which she had paid considerably more money than anyone needed to spend on a domestic appliance.
Andrea turned a page. Emily opened the refrigerator.
“What do you want?”
“For breakfast?”
“No Andy, for Christmas.”
Andrea smiled at the book. “Eggs?”
“Fine.”
“And toast.”
Emily took out the eggs.
“Maybe fruit.”
“You’re pushing it.”
Emily set a pan on the stove. The kitchen settled into an easy quiet. She cracked eggs, Andrea read, the coffee machine continued making mechanical noises that suggested it was performing surgery rather than producing two drinks.
Emily looked over after a minute. The book was barely thicker than her phone.
“How are you still reading that?”
Andrea glanced up. “What?”
“It’s tiny.” Emily turned down the heat beneath the pan. “How long can it possibly take?”
Andrea looked mildly offended. “I’m not trying to finish it. I’ve finished it before.”
Emily paused.
“How many times?” Andrea considered this. “That is not a reassuring pause.”
“I don’t know. Five? Six?”
Emily stared at her.
Andrea laughed. “What?”
“You voluntarily read the same miserable little book six times.”
“It isn’t miserable.”
“A woman spends most of it loving somebody else.”
“That isn’t all that happens.”
“It appears to be a fairly substantial portion.”
Andrea closed the book around one finger. “You were paying attention.”
“I was trapped beneath you while you explained the plot.”
“You were not trapped.” Emily gave her a look and turned back to the eggs. Andrea opened the book again. “You reread things too.”
“No.”
“You reread Runway.”
“That is called proofreading.”
“And old issues?”
“Reference.”
Andrea smiled into her coffee. Emily plated the eggs and pushed one towards her.
“There. Eat something before Dostoevsky ruins your appetite.”
Andrea set the book beside her plate, but left it open. Emily sat opposite her. For approximately thirty seconds, they ate in silence. Then Andrea picked the book up again.
Emily put down her fork.
“Andrea.”
“Listen to this.”
“I am eating.”
Andrea ignored her and found the passage she wanted.
“‘Why, one thanks some people for being alive at the same time with one.’”
Emily chewed slowly.
Andrea waited.
Emily swallowed.
“What?”
“That’s it?”
“What do you want from me?”
Andrea turned the book towards herself again. “Doesn’t that move you at all?”
“No.”
“Emily.” Andrea stared at her. Emily reached for the toast. “It’s one of the most beautiful things in the whole story. The idea that meeting one person can make you grateful you happened to exist at the same time they did.”
Emily buttered her toast.
“Yes, I understood it.”
“And?”
“And your coffee is getting cold.”
Andrea looked at the cup beside her, then back at Emily.
“You’re impossible.”
“You’re having breakfast with me voluntarily.”
Andrea took a drink. Emily returned to her eggs.
A moment later, Andrea said, “It’s still good.”
Emily did not look up. “I’m delighted for Dostoevsky.”
Andrea smiled and finally began eating. Emily lasted perhaps another minute before glancing at the book. The ribbon marker had slipped onto the counter, dark against the pale stone. Andrea had left the page open beside her plate. Emily could see the line from where she was sitting.
Why, one thanks some people for being alive at the same time with one.
She looked away before Andrea noticed. The coffee machine beeped. Emily stood, collected the fresh cup and placed it beside Andrea’s hand.
“Thank you.”
Emily returned to her seat. Andrea wrapped both hands around the cup, warm and pleased, then nudged the plate of toast slightly towards Emily because she had taken the better piece without asking. Emily took it. Neither of them mentioned the book again until breakfast was finished.
Emily was six minutes late to lunch and found Andrea reading. She stopped beside the table.
Andrea did not look up, even not when Emily took off her sunglasses.
“Andrea, do you need an intervention?”
That got her attention.
Andrea lifted her head, smiled, and closed White Nights over one finger. “Oh hi.”
“You’ve brought it to lunch.”
“Just killing time until you got here, honey.”
Emily sat opposite her and handed her coat to the waiter without looking away from the book. It had been four days since breakfast. Four days during which Andrea had presumably gone to work, attended meetings, edited a magazine, slept, eaten and participated in other basic human functions. Yet somehow Dostoevsky had survived all of them.
Emily picked up the menu.
“I’m becoming concerned.”
“You could read it and find out what all the fuss is about.”
“I have other things to do.”
Andrea opened the book again.
“Such as?”
“Work. Raising children. Maintaining basic standards -”
“Very demanding.”
“- And apparently monitoring your descent into literary obsession.”
Andrea laughed and put the book beside her plate.
They were sitting at a small Italian place a few blocks from Runway, chosen because Andrea had an editorial meeting at two and Emily had refused to spend half her lunch crossing Manhattan. The restaurant was busy enough that nobody paid them much attention, which had become one of Emily’s preferred qualities in a restaurant since they had started seeing each other.
Andrea reached for the water.
“How’s your day?”
“I spent an hour discussing whether a bag should be described as oxblood or burgundy.”
Andrea considered that. “Oxblood.”
“Obviously.” Emily smiled, “The fact that you know that is one of the reasons I tolerate you.”
Andrea smiled. “Only one?”
Emily looked at the menu.
“Don’t fish.”
The waiter came over before Andrea could answer. Emily ordered almost immediately. Andrea changed her mind twice, apologised to the waiter, then eventually chose the pasta she had been considering from the beginning. Once they were alone again, Emily reached across and tapped the cover of White Nights.
“Seriously though.”
“What?”
“Why this one?”
Andrea looked down at it. The question seemed to surprise her more than Emily expected.
“I don’t know.”
“You’ve read it six times. You must know.”
Andrea picked up the book but did not open it. She ran her thumb along the edge of the cover instead.
“I read it for the first time in college.” Andrea paused, “I think I liked how small it was.”
Emily waited.
“It was one of those classes where everyone was carrying around eight hundred page novels and pretending they weren’t miserable. Then we got White Nights.”
“And you thought, finally, a Russian man who understands brevity.”
“Basically.” Emily took a sip of water. Andrea turned the book over in her hands. “Then I read it.”
“And discovered that he had used those hundred pages to make everyone miserable instead.”
“He doesn’t make everyone miserable.”
“He certainly seems committed to the attempt.” Andrea glanced at her. Emily lifted one shoulder. “You asked.”
“It’s sad,” Andrea admitted. “But I don’t think that’s the same thing.”
The restaurant doors opened somewhere behind Emily, bringing with them a brief rush of traffic noise before closing again. Andrea looked towards the window for a moment.
“It feels suspended,” she said. “Everything happens over these few nights when it never really gets dark. They meet, and suddenly his whole life changes, but there’s this sense that it can’t last because morning is always coming.” Emily watched her. Andrea had started talking with her hands now, the book held loosely in one of them. “The white nights are a real thing in Saint Petersburg. Around midsummer, it stays light almost all night. I’ve always wanted to see it.”
Emily set down her glass.
“Saint Petersburg.”
“Yeah.”
“In Russia.”
Andrea looked at her. “I’m familiar with the geography.”
“The current political climate rather takes the romance out of that plan.”
“I said I’ve always wanted to go. I didn’t say I was booking tickets this afternoon.”
“Good.”
Andrea gave her a look. Emily picked up her water again.
“There are other places with prolonged daylight.”
“I know.”
“Norway.”
“It’s not the same.”
“Finland.”
“Still not Saint Petersburg.”
“Iceland.”
Andrea leaned back in her chair. “Are you going to keep naming northern countries until I surrender?”
Their food arrived, interrupting any further discussion of Emily’s geographically safer alternatives. Andrea moved White Nights away from the plates. For several minutes they ate without talking much. Andrea had been right about the restaurant, which Emily would tell her later if she continued behaving herself.
Halfway through lunch, Andrea looked at the book again. Emily saw it happen and put down her fork.
“Right, give me your favourite line of the day.” She said, leaning back in her chair, “Go on, then.”
Andrea reached for the book. She found the page quickly enough that Emily suspected she had already marked it mentally.
“This one,” Andrea said. Emily sighed, but there was very little conviction behind it. Andrea read. “‘I would love you so, that even if you still loved him, even if you went on loving the man I don't know, you would never feel that my love was a burden to you.’”
Emily was quiet.
The restaurant continued around them. Cutlery against plates, conversation from the next table, the soft movement of waiters through the room. Emily looked at the page for a moment longer than necessary.
“Well?”
Emily picked up her glass.
“He needs some self-respect.”
Andrea laughed, but Emily did not immediately join her. From all the lines she’d heard so far, this one was the worst one, because Emily understood it without effort. She understood the particular humiliation of wanting someone enough to make allowances for whatever part of them remained elsewhere. She understood loving someone without requiring that love to arrive in a convenient shape. She understood the instinct to make oneself easy to keep.
She disliked understanding any of that.
Andrea was still watching her.
“Don’t look pleased.”
“I think that one got you.”
“It did no such thing.”
Andrea’s smile widened. Emily pointed her fork at her.
“Eat your lunch.”
Andrea obeyed, for once. Emily returned to her own plate, although she found herself thinking about the sentence again. Even if you still loved him. She knew enough about White Nights now to know how badly that arrangement ended. It was ridiculous, really. The Dreamer seemed determined to volunteer for heartbreak and then behave as though this constituted nobility. Emily had never had much patience for people who presented suffering as proof of devotion.
Still.
You would never feel that my love was a burden to you.
Andrea reached across the table and took a piece of bread from the shared bread basket. Emily looked at her hand and watched how Andrea stopped halfway.
“Wait, I had two - is that last bit yours?”
“Yes.” Andrea started putting it back. Emily waved her away. “Take it.”
Andrea did. There were probably literary people who could construct an entire theory around that. Emily hoped never to meet them.
“How long is your meeting?” she asked.
“An hour, hopefully.”
“And realistically?”
“Two.”
Emily made a face and finished the last of her water. Andrea reached for White Nights again when the waiter cleared their plates. Emily watched her tuck the ribbon carefully between the pages before putting it into her bag.
Outside, Manhattan had settled into one of those bright spring afternoons that made everyone walk more slowly than necessary. Andrea had ten minutes before she needed to head back towards Runway, so they stood near the corner while she checked something on her phone.
They started towards the next block together. At the crossing, Andrea slipped her hand briefly into Emily’s. It was instinctive enough that neither of them commented on it. Emily looked straight ahead as the light changed.
After a few steps, she said, “Norway really is very nice.” Andrea laughed. Emily tightened her fingers around Andrea’s hand before letting go at the corner. “Go to your meeting.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And don’t read during it.”
Andrea was already walking backwards towards Runway.
“No promises.”
Emily watched her for a moment before turning in the opposite direction. The line from lunch followed her for three blocks.
By late Saturday afternoon, Emily had spent more time in traffic than she considered reasonable for the continued development of her children.
Bronwyn’s tennis lesson had run twelve minutes late because her coach had apparently discovered something urgent about her backhand. Roark’s American football practice had finished on time, which would have been impressive if he had not then taken another fifteen minutes to emerge from the building carrying his helmet under one arm and looking as though somebody had rolled him through grass.
Emily watched him approach the car.
“What happened to you?”
“Nothing.”
There was dried blood along one forearm. Emily opened the passenger door.
“Get in.”
“It’s just a scratch.”
Bronwyn shifted her tennis bag out of his way as he climbed into the back.
Emily had never entirely reconciled herself to American football. The helmets, the padding, the repeated deliberate collisions. She had suggested swimming once. Roark had looked at her as though she had proposed competitive embroidery.
Bronwyn, at least, had chosen tennis. A proper sport. Technically demanding, aesthetically acceptable, and involving significantly fewer people throwing themselves at her.
Emily pulled away from the kerb.
“Does it hurt?”
Roark looked at his arm. “No.”
“Then why is there blood?”
“Because skin does that when you scrape it.”
Bronwyn looked out the window to hide a smile. Emily caught it in the mirror.
“You can both find your own way home.”
Neither seemed particularly concerned by the threat.
Andrea was already there when they arrived.
Emily knew because her shoes were beside the front door, her coat was hanging properly rather than abandoned over the nearest chair, and there was music coming quietly from the living room. Bronwyn disappeared in that direction almost immediately. Roark made it three steps before Emily caught the back of his shirt.
“Bathroom.”
“Mum.”
“You can either let me clean that now or explain an infection to your father next week.”
“It’s not going to get infected.”
“Wonderful. We’ll celebrate after I disinfect it.”
Andrea appeared briefly in the doorway. Her gaze went from Emily to Roark’s arm.
“What happened?”
“Football,” Emily said.
Roark said, “Nothing.”
Andrea looked at him.
“Right.”
Emily pointed towards the bathroom. Roark went.
Andrea kissed Emily quickly before she followed him.
“Good day?”
“I’ve driven across half of Manhattan so that one child can hit a ball elegantly and the other can be assaulted recreationally.”
Andrea smiled.
“He likes it.”
“I know. That’s the problem.”
She went after Roark.
The scrape was minor.
Emily had known it was minor in the car. Knowing this did not prevent her from sitting Roark on the closed toilet seat and examining it under proper light while he watched with the resigned patience of someone accustomed to maternal inspection.
“It didn’t even bleed that much.”
“There is blood on your sleeve.”
“A little.”
Emily wet a cloth. Roark immediately leaned away.
“Don’t.”
“I haven’t even touched you.”
“That stuff stings.”
“It’s antiseptic, not acid.” He sighed. Emily cleaned the scrape carefully whilst Roark made one dramatic face and then gave up on trying to be dramatic. “There.”
He begrudgingly waited for her to put a plaster on the cut, and then stood up.
“Can I go now?”
Emily looked over the rest of him. There was a grass stain on his trousers and something on the shoulder of his shirt she had decided not to investigate.
“Yes.”
By the time Emily washed her hands and followed him downstairs, she could hear Andrea and Bronwyn talking. The teenager was sitting sideways in one of the armchairs, still in her tennis skirt, one leg folded beneath her. Andrea had taken the sofa. White Nights was open between them.
Emily stopped just outside the room.
Roark had already dropped into the opposite end of the sofa and was scrolling through his phone with no visible interest in the literary seminar occurring beside him.
Bronwyn was saying, “That’s horrible.”
Andrea laughed. “It is.”
“No, I mean really horrible.”
“I know.”
Emily walked into the room.
“Should I be concerned?”
Bronwyn looked up.
“Andrea’s explaining the ending.”
“That has been happening to me for a week.”
Andrea turned the book around slightly.
“She asked.”
Bronwyn nodded. “I did.”
“Then you have only yourself to blame.”
Emily sat in the other armchair and crossed one leg over the other.
Bronwyn looked back at Andrea.
“So she knows he loves her?”
“Yes.”
“And she loves him too.”
“Yes.”
“But she still wants the other man.”
Andrea nodded. Bronwyn frowned. Emily watched her daughter process this with considerably more patience than she had afforded the same material.
“Awful.”
“It’s complicated.”
“It seems quite straightforward.”
Emily glanced at Bronwyn.
“Finally, someone sensible.”
Andrea ignored her.
Bronwyn leaned forward.
“What does she actually say?”
Andrea turned a few pages.
“This part.”
Emily knew what was coming the moment Andrea took that particular breath. She had developed an ear for it. Andrea read aloud.
“‘Oh, if only I could love you both at once! Oh, if only you were he!’”
Bronwyn’s expression changed.
“Oh.”
Andrea closed the book slightly.
“Yeah.”
“That’s brutal.”
“It is.”
Emily looked towards the window. She had heard Andrea quote three lines from this book now. Each had been progressively worse. Bronwyn was still thinking.
“Because she does love him.”
“Just not in the way he needs.”
“And he knows that.”
“He knows.”
Roark looked up from his phone.
“Why doesn’t he just leave then?” Three heads turned towards him. He shrugged. “If she wants someone else.”
Andrea smiled.
“That would probably be healthier.”
Roark returned to his phone, apparently satisfied that he had solved nineteenth-century Russian literature. Emily looked at Andrea.
“I’ve been saying this.”
“You said he needed self-respect.”
“Which remains accurate.”
Bronwyn took the book from Andrea. She looked down at the page.
“I think it’s worse because she wishes he was someone else.”
Andrea nodded.
“That’s what gets me too.”
Emily watched them. There was something unexpectedly easy about the sight. Andrea did not shift into some artificial adult voice when she spoke to Bronwyn. She never had. She simply answered the question she had been asked, then waited to see what Bronwyn thought. Emily had noticed it before, but there was a difference between noticing Andrea getting along with her children and seeing Andrea belong naturally in the middle of an ordinary Saturday afternoon.
Bronwyn turned another page.
“How long is it?”
“Not long.”
Emily made a small sound. Andrea looked over.
“Don’t.”
“I said nothing.”
“You were about to.”
“I was going to point out that being short has done absolutely nothing to limit its presence in my life.”
Bronwyn smiled. Andrea took the criticism calmly.
“I can leave it here if you want to read it.”
Bronwyn looked up.
“Really?”
“Sure.”
Emily stared at Andrea. Andrea caught it.
“What?”
“You lost that book in this house once already.”
“I know where it is now.”
“You thought you’d left it in a cab.”
“And now Bronwyn is going to read it.”
Bronwyn held the book protectively.
“I’ll look after it.”
Emily looked at her daughter, then at Andrea.
“Fine.”
Andrea smiled. Emily narrowed her eyes slightly. There was no reason for Andrea to look quite so pleased about winning an argument Emily had barely participated in. Roark sat forward.
“Are we getting pizza?”
Bronwyn did not look away from the book.
“I want pizza. I’ve been playing tennis for two hours.”
Andrea leaned back into the sofa.
“I vote pizza.”
Emily looked at all three of them. Roark raised his hand. Bronwyn raised hers without taking her eyes off the page. Andrea raised hers last.
Emily stared.
“This is my house.”
“And this, baby,” Andrea smiled. “is democracy.”
Emily took out her phone and opened the delivery app. Across from her, Bronwyn had begun reading. Andrea watched her for a moment, then looked towards Emily. Their eyes met briefly and Andrea smiled - Emily looked back down at her phone before she could get distracted.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“The mushroom one.”
Emily added it. Roark started lobbying for something involving three different kinds of meat. Bronwyn wanted olives but objected to peppers. Andrea proposed getting a fifth pizza that they could all share, before Emily made an executive decision and ordered just four, which was way more sensible, of course.
The conversation moved on. White Nights remained open in Bronwyn’s lap. Later, after pizza had been eaten and Roark had finally showered, Emily found the book on the coffee table. Bronwyn had left a scrap of paper between the pages to mark her place. Andrea was in the kitchen loading glasses into the dishwasher.
Emily picked up the book. It fell open naturally where Bronwyn had stopped. Her eyes landed on the line before she could help it. Oh, if only I could love you both at once! Oh, if only you were he! Emily closed it.
“Still terrible,” she murmured.
From the kitchen, Andrea called, “What?”
“Nothing.”
Emily placed the book carefully back on the table. She made sure the scrap of paper stayed exactly where Bronwyn had left it.
By Sunday evening, the house had returned to its usual state.
Roark had remembered that he needed something printed for school, and Emily had discovered the plaster stuck to the side of the bathroom sink rather than anywhere near his arm. Andrea had stayed through dinner, helped Bronwyn with something Emily had been informed was not actually homework but looked suspiciously like homework, and spent half an hour on the sofa with Roark watching highlights from a game Emily refused to learn enough about to identify.
It had been ordinary.
Emily had liked it more than she intended to examine.
Andrea left shortly after ten because she had an eight o’clock meeting at Runway and had no desire to spend Monday morning crossing Manhattan from Emily’s side of the city. Emily walked her to the door while the children were upstairs getting ready for bed.
“You could stay,” Emily said.
Andrea pulled on her coat.
“I could.” Emily waited. Andrea smiled. “And then I’d be awake at six, complaining about traffic while you tell me I made poor choices.”
“That does sound irritating.”
“For both of us.”
Emily adjusted the collar of Andrea’s coat where it had folded underneath itself. Andrea watched her do it.
“Wednesday?”
“I have dinner.”
“Thursday?”
Emily considered her calendar.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Andrea kissed her, one hand resting briefly against Emily’s waist. It started as the sort of kiss appropriate for a front hallway with two children somewhere upstairs and became less appropriate with impressive efficiency. Emily pulled back first. Andrea’s mouth followed hers for half a second before she stopped.
“Go.”
“You started that.”
“I’m ending it.”
Andrea smiled.
“You’re very disciplined.”
“Goodnight, Andrea.”
Another kiss, shorter this time.
Then Andrea left.
Emily locked the door behind her and went upstairs to tell Roark for the second time that school uniforms were not supposed to remain in the dryer overnight.
By eleven, both children were in bed.
The kitchen was clean. The lights downstairs were low. Emily changed into soft trousers and one of the old cashmere sweaters she would deny owning if anyone outside the house ever saw it, then went back into the living room.
There was still wine in the bottle from the night before. Not much, ‘cause Andrea had opened it after dinner on Saturday. They had each managed perhaps half a glass before the evening had shifted elsewhere and the wine had been forgotten completely. Emily poured what remained into a glass and sat down on the sofa.
White Nights was on the coffee table.
Bronwyn had read nearly half of it before deciding she needed to finish an essay for Monday. She had left the little scrap of paper between the pages again. Emily looked at the television, then at the book.
She picked up the remote. The book remained where it was. Emily opened a streaming service and spent several minutes looking through programmes she did not particularly want to watch.
Her eyes drifted back towards the coffee table.
“Get a grip, Charlton.” She mumbled to herself.
She selected something and waited for the opening credits to start. She lasted about three minutes before pausing it.
White Nights sat beneath the lamplight looking completely harmless.
Emily picked up her wine, took a drink, and then, against every principle she had maintained for the past week, she reached for the book. She removed Bronwyn’s marker, careful to remember where it had been, and opened to the first page.
A sentimental story from the diary of a dreamer
Emily sighed.
“Fine.”
She began reading.
At first, she read with the slightly hostile concentration she usually reserved for contracts somebody else had drafted badly. She noticed every indulgence, every excessive declaration, every instance in which the narrator seemed capable of saving himself considerable distress by developing a less dramatic personality.
The Dreamer was lonely. Emily had understood that much from Andrea’s explanations. What Andrea had failed to communicate was how thoroughly lonely he was.
Not simply alone. He had built an entire life around the fact of being apart from other people, filling the empty spaces with imagined relationships, imagined conversations, imagined futures. He knew buildings better than he knew people. He could manufacture years of feeling for women he had never spoken to.
Emily found this, naturally, deeply unhealthy.
She kept reading. The first night went quickly. She reached the line Andrea had read to her on the sofa. I shall be dreaming of you all night, a whole week, a whole year.
Emily stopped. She could almost hear Andrea’s voice saying it. She remembered Andrea curled into the corner of this same sofa, hair falling around her face, entirely delighted to have recovered the little book.
Why, one thanks some people for being alive at the same time with one.
It was still sentimental. That was obvious. There were thousands of people one could meet in a lifetime. Most passed through it with no particular consequence. Colleagues, neighbours, acquaintances, people one sat beside at dinners and forgot by the following morning. Then there were people whose existence altered the shape of things. Emily thought of Andrea arriving at her door with wine and cannoli. Andrea leaving hair ties in the bathroom. Andrea sitting with Bronwyn discussing a Russian novella as though there were nowhere else she particularly needed to be.
Emily turned the page.
The story became worse - Nastenka loved another man, and the Dreamer helped her anyway. Emily knew that part, but reading it was different from hearing Andrea explain it over pasta. There was something excruciating about watching him understand what was happening before Nastenka did. Her happiness depended upon somebody else, and he kept helping her towards it because he could not bear to make himself another source of pain.
I would love you so, that even if you still loved him, even if you went on loving the man I don't know, you would never feel that my love was a burden to you.
She lowered the book. The house was silent. Her wine remained untouched on the table. Emily leaned back against the sofa and looked towards the dark window.
“That’s ridiculous,” she said quietly.
By the time she reached the fourth night, she had stopped noticing page numbers. Nastenka was devastated, the Dreamer confessed his feelings. For one brief, ludicrous stretch of pages, everything seemed capable of becoming something else. Emily knew it would not, and that somehow made it worse.
Oh, if only I could love you both at once! Oh, if only you were he!
Emily closed her eyes.
“Christ.”
She understood now why Andrea had said that was the part that got her. It was not rejection exactly. Rejection would almost have been kinder. Nastenka loved him; she simply loved somebody else more.
Emily kept reading. She read how the other man appeared, how Nastenka ran to him, how the Dreamer was left standing there. Then came morning, the letter, the realisation Nastenka was going to marry him.
Emily felt an unexpected irritation on the Dreamer’s behalf despite having spent most of the novella thinking he needed professional help.
Then she reached the final paragraph.
“But to imagine that I should bear you a grudge, Nastenka!” Emily continued until the final line. “My God, a whole moment of happiness! Is that too little for the whole of a man's life?”
She stopped. The room was very quiet. Emily sat with the book open in her hands and realised she’d finally got to the crux of this whole literary exercise, the entire irritating, sentimental, miserable little thing reduced to one question.
Was one moment enough?
One genuine moment, when somebody had made him happy. When he had been known and loved, however briefly and however imperfectly. Was the loss of everything that might have followed enough to make that moment worthless?
Emily stared at the words.
She thought of Andrea - Not their first kiss, although that had been very good. Not their first proper date or anything else cinematic.
She thought of Saturday morning instead - Andrea in Emily’s dressing gown, stealing her coffee and reading at the kitchen island while Emily made eggs. She thought of Andrea’s coat hanging beside hers. Andrea’s hand finding hers at a crossing. Andrea sitting with Bronwyn. Andrea laughing when Emily criticised Russian literature she had never read.
Small moments, of which there were already dozens.
Emily looked back at the last line.
A whole moment of happiness.
She shut the book carefully and sat there for another minute. Then she picked up the wine and discovered it had been sitting untouched long enough to lose any appeal. Emily carried the glass into the kitchen, poured it away and returned to the living room. She placed Bronwyn’s marker back exactly where it had been. Then she took White Nights upstairs with her.
Monday morning gave Emily very little opportunity to reconsider what she had decided. She had three meetings before eleven, a call that should have taken fifteen minutes and somehow occupied forty. By twelve twenty, she had heard enough.
She picked up her coat, slipped White Nights into her bag and left.
Runway recognised her now. That had happened gradually, much like everything else with Andrea. There had been a time when walking through reception meant being assessed from head to toe. Now the receptionist simply smiled and told her Andrea was in her office. The floor itself was as frantic as ever. Assistants moved between desks, garment racks disappeared around corners, phones rang without interruption. Emily barely registered any of it.
Andrea’s door was open. She was behind her desk, one hand against her temple as she read something on her screen, surrounded by proofs and an abandoned coffee. When she looked up and saw Emily, her entire expression changed.
That alone justified the trip.
Andrea stood and came around the desk, asking what Emily was doing there and whether everything was all right. Emily answered neither question properly. She took White Nights from her bag, crossed the remaining distance between them and kissed her.
Andrea made a quiet sound of surprise before her hands settled automatically at Emily’s waist. Emily took her time with it. She had come to Runway in the middle of a Monday specifically because she had spent half the previous night reading Russian literature and thinking about Andrea. Subtlety seemed pointless now.
When they separated, Andrea looked at the book in Emily’s hand.
“Finished it,” Emily murmured.
“You read White Nights?”
“Every bloody page.” Emily handed her the book. “I understand the last line.” Emily had considered several versions of what she wanted to say on the way over. Every one of them had sounded unbearable. In the end, the truth was simpler. “One moment would be enough, apparently.” She glanced at the book between them. “I would still prefer all of them.”
Andrea went very still before leaning in and kissing her again. This time there was no surprise in it. Her hand slipped behind Emily’s neck, keeping her close until they finally separated.
Andrea smiled against her mouth. “Was there a particular moment where Dostoevsky finally broke through your cold English heart?”
“My heart is perfectly functional.” Emily mumbled, “Right - let's go for lunch.”
Andrea glanced at her computer. “Meeting. Ten minutes. Will you wait?”
Emily sighed and sat down. “Fine.”
She reopened White Nights while Andrea worked, rereading the final page until the laptop finally closed.
“Twelve minutes.”
“That’s practically ten.” Andrea took the book from her. “I’m proud of you.”
“For reading a hundred pages?”
“For surviving a hundred pages of Russian misery.” Andrea grabbed her bag, “And for waiting for me for lunch, you must be starving.”
Emily stood and reached for her coat. “I’ve already suffered through a hundred pages of Russian misery. Twelve minutes is nothing in comparison.” Andrea laughed and tucked the book under her arm. Emily glanced at it. “You’re paying for lunch.”
“Was planning to do so anyway. Little treat for my avid reader.”
That, Emily thought, was more like it.