CHAPTER 1

The Voucher Nobody Asked For

 

Christmas lunch. Paper hats. Too many prawns, not enough napkins. That was the scene, as if the universe itself had decided subtlety was overrated. We were in my eldest daughter’s backyard, the kind that looks relaxed but has clearly been prepared for days. Plastic trestle table. A crooked umbrella doing its best against the sun. Someone’s Bluetooth speaker played a playlist titled Classic Christmas Favourites that included exactly one Christmas song and several things from the 1980s that apparently now qualify.

I wore the paper hat because it was easier than refusing. Red with gold stars. It slid down over my ears and made me look like a disappointed magician.

My daughters sat opposite me, exchanging looks in the way they’ve perfected since childhood. A silent conference that ends with one of them sighing and taking the lead. The grandchildren were already sticky. I wasn’t sure how, given lunch technically had not begun yet, but children have their ways.

“Right,” Emma said, clapping her hands together. “Presents.”

I frowned. “We agreed on no presents.”

“We agreed you weren’t buying presents,” she said. “This is different.”

I should have known better.

I’ve been an architect for over thirty years, and I understand contracts, loopholes, and the danger of vague agreements.

They handed me an envelope.

Thick and cream-coloured.

Tasteful in that expensive way that suggests whoever designed it charges by the hour and does not apologise.

I opened it slowly, already bracing myself.

Inside was a voucher.

Gold-embossed lettering on heavy card stock with a name in elegant script I didn’t recognise.

One Private Psychic Reading.

I stared at it for a long moment, waiting for the punchline to arrive.

It didn’t, so I looked up and saw that both daughters were smiling too brightly while the grandchildren leaned in.

“A psychic?” I said.

“Yes!” Emma said far too quickly.

“No,” I said equally quickly.

“It’s an experience,” my younger daughter, Emily, added. “Not a thing.”

“It’s a con,” I said. “Wrapped in nice paper.”

Emily rolled her eyes. “Dad.”

I felt it then, that familiar mix of scepticism, irritation, and the creeping guilt that comes from knowing your children have tried, genuinely tried, and you are about to disappoint them, anyway.

“I don’t need a psychic,” I said. “I’m fine.”

This was objectively untrue, but it was the version of the truth I’d been using for some time.

Emma leaned forward.

“You talk to the houseplants, Dad. This is at least a human.”

The grandchildren snorted.

“That’s true,” said Jack, eight years old and still unburdened by tact. “Pop talks to the fern like it’s a dog.”

“It listens,” I said defensively. “Better than most people.”

“And does the psychic know Nanna?” Lily asked, five, her mouth already ringed with mango juice.

The table went quiet, not dramatically, but just enough.

And there it was.

The absence. Not melodramatic. Not announced.

Just quietly everywhere, like the empty chair beside me, like the way no one said her name unless they were careful.

“No,” Emma whispered. “She does not know her.”

I nodded, suddenly very interested in the prawn platter.

My wife had been gone for three years.

Long enough that people stopped lowering their voices when they spoke about the future, short enough that the past still rearranged itself daily.

Her absence lived in small things: the extra mug I still washed, the indentation on the couch cushion, the way Christmas lunch had lost its internal compass.

I hadn’t fallen apart. That was the thing I had simply stopped expanding.

I was fifty-five. Semi-retired by choice, or perhaps by fatigue. I worked from home now, selecting architectural projects that didn’t require optimism: renovations instead of new builds, restorations instead of bold visions. Houses with good bones and limited expectations. Structures that had already survived disappointment.

I told myself it was a preference, and I didn’t mention the other reason: imagining futures had become exhausting.

“This isn’t about spirits and nonsense,” Emma said, tapping the voucher. “She’s meant to be very grounded.”

“That’s what they all say.”

“She doesn’t do crystal balls.”

“Oh, well then,” I said. “That changes everything.”

Emma gave me a look. The one that said don’t make me spell this out.

“Dad,” she said. “You can’t just pause forever.”

“I’m not paused,” I said. “I’m resting.”

Jack leaned across the table. “Mum says you’re stuck.”

Children are honest in the way only the unscarred can afford.

“I’m not stuck,” I said.

“You wear the same jumper every day,” Lily added helpfully.

“That’s because it’s efficient.”

Emily smiled softly. “It’s because it was Mum’s favourite.”

That did it.

The irritation drained out of me, leaving only the guilt. Not the sharp kind, the dull, persistent sort that lives behind the ribs.

“I appreciate the thought,” I said finally. “I really do. But I’m not going.”

They didn’t argue. That worried me more than if they had.

“Just keep it,” Emma said. “No pressure.”

No pressure is a lie that parents tell children, and then children return the favour when they grow up.

Lunch resumed, and the paper hats came off. Someone spilled sauce. The day carried on because days are very good at doing that.

Later, when the house was quiet again, too quiet, I took the voucher out of my pocket and placed it on my desk.

My home office was once my wife’s domain. She’d sat in the corner armchair with a book, offering unsolicited opinions on rooflines and window placements. Now the chair remained permanently empty, a suggestion rather than a presence.

The voucher sat there for days.

Gold-embossed, heavy, and accusatory.

Every time I passed the desk, it caught the light.

I told myself I wasn’t avoiding it. I was simply busy. There were drawings to revise, emails to answer, and plants to water. The fern seemed to thrive on conversation. Or perhaps it was just polite. The voucher did not thrive. It waited. Impossible to ignore, and I resented it for that.

 

 

CHAPTER 2

Scheduling My Nonsense

 

I booked the appointment to prove I was right; well, that was the story I told myself, anyway. A controlled experiment.

Hypothesis: psychics are nonsense. Method: attend the session. Expected outcome: smug confirmation. My expected conclusion will be that I would return the voucher unused, thus vindicated.

Simple.

The website alone nearly derailed me.

It opened with a soft fade-in: pale lavender background, floating serif font, the kind that thinks it’s calming but mostly just makes you suspicious. Words like journey, clarity, and alignment drifted across the screen as if they might float away if I moved the mouse too abruptly.

I snorted. Aloud. To no one.

“Alignment,” I said to the room. “Try aligning your footer with your margins.”

The fern did not disagree.

I scrolled.

Reconnect with what’s been lost.

Find guidance without judgement.

Private and confidential sessions in a safe space.

Safe space.

Another phrase that had taken on a life of its own.

Once upon a time, a safe space was a building that didn’t collapse. Now it was emotional, spiritual, vaguely scented.

I clicked through to the booking page purely out of professional curiosity. Research and due diligence I call it.

The same justification I’d used years ago when sketching a community arts centre, I knew, would never be funded. Some ideas exist only to remind you of what won’t happen.

The booking calendar appeared.

Tuesdays and Thursdays are shaded in a reassuring sage green. Available slots dotted like opportunities I had no intention of taking.

I hovered over one.

My internal monologue started up immediately, as it always did when I was close to doing something I’d later have to explain.

Do not be fooled, do not be vulnerable, and do not compare her to your wife.

That last one surprised me.

 I hadn’t even seen the woman yet, and already my brain was laying down rules like caution tape.

I glanced at the “About” page, and a photograph loaded.

Oh, right.

She wasn’t what I’d expected.

No flowing robes, no theatrical jewellery.

She looked composed.

Modern.

Intelligent in a way that suggested she’d read books without pictures.

I closed the tab immediately, as if caught doing something inappropriate.

“Focus,” I told myself. “This is a con.”

The site mentioned her background, though notably vague.

Years of experience with an empathic insight.

Client confidentiality.

No mention of any reading techniques, or psychological cues, or the ancient art of saying things that apply to everyone.

I scoffed at the testimonials.

She knew things no one could have known.

I left feeling lighter.

Life-changing.

Of course you did, I thought. You paid for it.

I told myself I was immune.

I design buildings; I understand structure.

Load-bearing truths. False facades. People don’t just know things.

Except sometimes they did.

My wife knew when I was lying about liking coriander. She’d known when the kids were sick before the thermometer confirmed it. She’d known when to stop asking me what was wrong. Sometimes I thought she was a witch.

I shut that line of thinking down immediately.

I selected a Thursday. Late morning. Safer than early, with less chance of dramatic lighting effects.

The confirmation screen popped up with an enthusiastic tick.

Your journey begins here.

“Oh, absolutely not,” I muttered.

I printed the confirmation email anyway.

The children followed up within hours.

Apparently, Christmas gifts came with tracking.

“So?” Emma texted.

“Have you booked?” Emily added, because they coordinate now.

I replied with a noncommittal thumbs-up, which in modern parenting apparently means I have done the thing but do not wish to discuss it.

The grandchildren were less subtle.

“Are you going to see the ghost lady?” Jack asked over FaceTime that evening.

“She’s not a ghost lady,” I said. “She’s a person.”

“Will she talk to Nana?” Lily asked.

I paused. Just long enough.

“I don’t think so, sweetheart.”

“Oh,” she said, immediately bored. “Then what’s the point?”

Fair question.

“Do ghosts get Medicare?” Jack asked.

“Only if they’ve kept their paperwork up to date,” I said.

The days between booking and appointment crawled in that peculiar way time does when it senses you’re avoiding something.

I found reasons to stay busy.

Redrew plans that didn’t need redrawing.

Cleaned the office shelves.

Talked to the fern more than usual, just to prove Emma wrong.

The jumper Lily had mentioned stayed draped over the chair. I told myself it was practical, for we all know that wool lasts.

The morning of the appointment arrived quietly.

No ominous signs, no sense of destiny, just an ordinary Thursday with mild humidity and the faint smell of eucalyptus drifting through the open window.

I dressed carefully. Not too formal, not casual enough to suggest I’d been lured in, you know, neutral colours, call it defensive layering.

As I drove, I rehearsed my scepticism. A mental checklist.

She will say general things.

She will fish for reactions.

You will give her nothing.

The address was in a small strip of shops I’d driven past countless times without noticing. A florist. A physiotherapist. A café with mismatched chairs and delusions of charm.

The psychic’s office was between a nail salon and an accounting firm.

Which, I had to admit, was deeply ironic or reassuring.

I parked across the street and sat in the car for a moment longer than necessary, gripping the steering wheel as if it might offer advice. It did not.

When I finally stepped out of the car, my architect’s instinct took over. The building presented itself for inspection, and I knew the brickwork was from the late seventies. Slightly uneven mortar lines. The signage had been updated recently, tasteful, and minimal, but the awning sagged on the left-hand side, suggesting deferred maintenance or an unresolved drainage issue.

I focused on that. On the misalignment, on the fact that the doorframe leaned just enough to bother me.

Control, I reminded myself. Stick to what you know.

The gold lettering on the window caught the sun.

Private readings by appointment.

I exhaled slowly.

“This,” I said under my breath, “is nonsense.”

Then I straightened my shoulders, adjusted my jumper, and crossed the street.

 

 

CHAPTER 3

The Woman Who Was Not What I Expected

 

I walked in expecting incense and crystals; instead; I got… her.

Let me rewind slightly, because context matters and because I’m an architect, and we’re constitutionally incapable of describing a space without first establishing the person occupying it.

My name is Thomas Hale. Tom, to everyone except contractors who’ve overcharged me and forms that demand my full legal identity. I’m fifty-five years old, one hundred eighty-four centimetres on a good posture day, greying at the temples in a way that strangers have recently started calling distinguished, which feels less like a compliment and more like a warning.

I am semi-retired by intention and by exhaustion. I work from home, design selectively, and own more cardigans than any man should admit to. I drink my coffee black, my humour dry, and my grief quietly.

And I do not believe in psychics.

Which made the woman standing behind the desk deeply inconvenient.

There was no incense, no wind chimes, no suspiciously glowing objects humming with implied wisdom. The room smelled faintly of citrus cleaner and old books. Natural light streamed in from a wide front window good orientation, actually  softened by sheer curtains that diffused rather than obscured.

The furniture was simple. Thoughtful and balanced.

Which is when my brain betrayed me and started noticing things it had no right to notice.

The desk was positioned slightly off-centre, not for symmetry but for flow. The chairs were angled, not confrontational. The room had breathing space, negative space, even, as if silence had been deliberately designed into it.

This was not chaos. This was the intention.

And then there was her.

She stood as I entered, not theatrically, just politely.

Mid-thirties, perhaps early forties. Dark hair pulled back loosely, not styled to suggest mystery, just practicality. She wore a linen blouse and trousers that looked comfortable without being careless.

No dramatic jewellery, no excessive makeup, and no attempt to look otherworldly.

She looked like someone who could argue a point and win.

“Well,” my internal monologue said briskly, “this is unfortunate.”

Immediate, mortifying thought: I am absolutely walking into a con session. Do not be a fool.

I’d been prepared for gimmicks. I was not prepared for competence.

“Thomas?” she said.

I nodded, suddenly very aware of my body occupying the doorway like an unresolved extension.

“I’m” She stopped herself, smiled slightly. “Please come in.”

Her voice was calm.

Neutral.

Not soothing in that manufactured way that suggests you’re about to be emotionally undressed.

I stepped inside.

The door closed behind me with a solid, reassuring click. Good hardware. No rattling.

I scanned the room automatically, the way I always do. The ceiling height was modest but well-proportioned.

Nothing looming nor oppressive.

The walls were a warm off-white, not the kind that pretends to be timeless, but the kind that accepts ageing gracefully.

The light fell evenly, with no harsh corners and no theatrical shadows.

If this were a building, I’d have approved the plans.

She gestured to a chair. I sat, folding myself into it carefully, like a man determined not to commit to comfort too quickly.

“My name is Claire,” she said. “Before we begin, I want to be clear about something.”

Here it comes, I thought.

The disclaimer. The mystical preamble.

“I don’t perform,” she continued. “I don’t do theatrics. This isn’t a show.”

Well, that was not what I’d expected.

She sat opposite me, not behind the desk.

A subtle choice. No barrier. No hierarchy.

“I ask questions,” she said. “We talk. If at any point you’re uncomfortable, we stop.”

I nodded.

Too quickly.

“Fine,” I said. “Good.”

She studied me for a moment.

Not intensely, but observationally, like someone assessing load-bearing walls.

“How old are you, Thomas?” she asked.

“Fifty-five.”

“And what do you do for a living?”

“I’m an architect.”

Her eyes flickered with genuine interest, I thought. Not strategic.

“Still practising?”

“Selectively.”

She smiled at that just enough to suggest she understood.

“Why are you here?” she asked.

Because my daughters think I’m stuck, because I talk to plants, because grief doesn’t respond to logic.

“Research,” I said.

She didn’t laugh and didn’t challenge it either.

“All right,” she said. “What kind?”

The question caught me off guard.

It wasn’t vague enough to dismiss, nor specific enough to trap me.

“I want to understand how this works,” I said carefully. “From a practical standpoint.”

She nodded. “Sceptical?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” she said. “Scepticism keeps people honest.”

That annoyed me, relieved me, and unsettled me in equal measure.

She asked about my work, my routine, and my house. Practical things. Grounded things. She did not ask about my wife.

I noticed the absence immediately.

Instead, she asked how long I’d lived in the same place.

“Twenty-two years,” I said.

“And how does it feel now?”

I hesitated.

“Larger,” I said finally.

She nodded again, as if I’d confirmed a calculation.

The session passed without incident.

No revelations, no psychic flourishes, and no declarations about past lives or spirit guides.

And yet.

When she mentioned stillness, it landed too close to something I hadn’t said. When she spoke about structures designed to endure absence, my chest tightened in a way that felt unplanned.

She said nothing supernatural. Not once.

Which made it worse.

When she glanced at the clock, I was surprised to realise the time had passed. That rarely happened to me anymore.

“All right,” she said gently. “That’s enough for today.”

I stood feeling different, not lighter in the dramatic sense, just less compressed and annoyed by that.

She walked me to the door.

“We can schedule another session if you like,” she said. “Or not.”

I nodded, noncommittal, already preparing my internal debrief.

As I stepped outside, the afternoon light felt sharper, brighter, and the street noisier.

I paused on the footpath, unsettled, annoyed, and inexplicably lighter.

No tricks and no mysticism.

Just a woman who had disrupted my assumptions.

And worse still, I realised as I walked away; I was already thinking about her proportions.

The way the room had felt balanced.

The way the light had been allowed to move.

Damn it.

I had come to prove I was right.

Instead, I left with questions.

Which, in my experience, was how all the important structures began.

 

 

CHAPTER 4

The Detail That Shouldn’t Exist

 

The problem with letting something unsettle you is that it keeps doing it, even when you’ve left the room.

For the first two days after my appointment, I told myself I’d forgotten about it. I went back to routine the way you return to an old chair: careful, familiar, pretending your body hasn’t changed shape.

I made coffee. I answered emails. I stared at a set of plans for a modest extension in Campbelltown and moved a window three centimetres to the left purely because I could.

I watered the fern. I said, “There you go, mate,” because apparently, I’m a man now who speaks to plants like they’re colleagues.

And all the while, Claire sat at the back of my mind like a pencil behind the ear, unnoticed until you suddenly need it, and then there it is.

It wasn’t even the psychic part.

There hadn’t been any psychic part.

That was what annoyed me most.

If she’d done the entire performance with mysterious sighs, dramatic pauses, a statement about someone whose name started with an M—I could have dismissed her neatly.

Filed her away under entertainment and moved on.

But she hadn’t.

She’d asked questions, and practical ones at that. She’d listened like listening was an actual skill, not a filler between speaking. She’d created a room that felt proportioned and balanced. Not cosy, not staged, just thoughtfully arranged to make space for truth.

And that was dangerously effective.

On the third day, I checked my phone like a teenager who’d sent a risky text. There was nothing there. Of course, there wasn’t. We weren’t anything.

On the fourth day, Claire texted.

A simple message.

Hi Thomas. I wanted to check in after our session. No pressure, but if you’d like to book again, there are a few openings next week.

No hearts, no mystical closing lines, just words that demanded nothing.

I stared at it for a full minute, as if prolonged scrutiny might reveal manipulation.

It didn’t. It revealed only that I wanted to reply.

Which was unacceptable.

I put the phone face down on the desk and went to the kitchen. Made tea I didn’t want, then I opened the fridge, and then I closed it. Then I stood there, one hand on the handle, like I’d forgotten what fridges were for.

In the lounge room, my wife’s jumper was still on the chair.

The same chair, always the same chair.

I told myself it was just a jumper, just fabric, just wool, and memory.

But it sat there with the quiet insistence only grief can manage.

There are things you keep because throwing them out feels like betrayal, and there are things you keep because you don’t know how to be a person who doesn’t keep them.

That night, I lay in bed and stared at the ceiling.

Not because I couldn’t sleep, but because I could. I was very good at sleeping. Sleep was my most reliable coping strategy. But my mind had developed a habit of pacing, and it would not be told to sit.

I thought about Claire’s room. The light, the calm, and the way she hadn’t pushed.

And then, without warning, I thought about my wife, Angela, laughing in the kitchen, the sound of it bright and quick, like a spoon tapping a mug. I hadn’t heard that laugh in three years, and yet it lived somewhere in me, always ready to ambush.

Angela, my Angie.

Just saying her name in my head felt like rubbing a bruise.

I rolled onto my side and told myself firmly: This is ridiculous.

I booked the second session the following morning.

Purely to settle it.

Purely to confirm my suspicions.

Purely to regain control.

I chose a time that suited my schedule because that’s what adults do when they’re not being emotionally unstable. Thursday again. Late morning. Same slot as last time. Consistency is soothing. It’s why people keep going back to the same café even when the coffee is average.

When I hit “confirm,” the screen flashed up the same cheerful line:

Your journey continues here.

I muttered something unprintable and shut the laptop.

 

Two days later, my daughters rang.

Not together, but close enough that it felt coordinated. Emma called first.

“How are you?” she asked in that careful tone that always makes the answer feel like a test.

“I’m fine,” I said.

“Dad.”

“I’m actually fine.”

Silence. Then: “Did you book the psychic again?”

I should have lied. I didn’t.

“Yes.”

A pause. A breath I could practically hear her taking.

“Okay,” she said softly. “Okay, that’s good.”

“It’s not good,” I said. “It’s just a booking.”

Emma made a noise that might have been a laugh. Might have been relief. “Sure, Dad. Just a booking.”

“Don’t make it into something.”

“I’m not,” she said. “I won’t. But thanks.”

I didn’t know what to do with that, so I changed the subject to the weather like a proper Australian man.

Emily, my daughter, called later, as if to verify.

“Are you going?” she asked.

“Yes,” I admitted.

“Is she weird?”

“No.”

“She’s not going to tell you that you were Cleopatra?”

“I swear to God, if she does…”

“Dad,” Emily said, laughing. “I’m proud of you.”

“I’m not doing anything that requires pride,” I said.

“You’re doing something new.”

I didn’t reply.

Because if there was one thing I was certain of, it was this: new was dangerous.

 

Thursday arrived, and I drove there without overthinking it too much, which, for me, is the emotional equivalent of skydiving.

I parked in the same spot, walked the same route, and noticed the same sagging awning and the slightly crooked signage.

Control.

I stepped inside.

Claire looked up from her desk, and for a moment, my mind did that annoying thing where it registered her as beautiful before I organised myself. It wasn’t the glossy beauty you see in advertisements. It was composed. Self-contained. Like a well-designed space: quiet confidence, light used well, nothing excessive.

It irritated me how much I noticed.

“Hi, Thomas,” she said, smiling. “Come in.”

Her voice was the same as last time. Calm. Practical. Real.

Once again, I sat in the same chair.

Again, she sat opposite.

No barrier.

No desk.

“How have you been since our last session?” she asked.

“Fine,” I said automatically.

She lifted one eyebrow. Not sceptical, just amused at how predictable I was.

“Fine,” I repeated. “Busy.”

“What kind of busy?”

“The kind where you move things around to convince yourself you’ve made progress,” I said before I could stop myself.

Claire’s smile softened, but she didn’t lean into it.

She didn’t say, That’s avoidance.

She didn’t say, Tell me about your feelings.

She simply nodded. “That’s a very common kind.”

I cleared my throat. “I’m here because I wanted to understand what you do.”

“And what do you think I do?” she asked.

“I think,” I said slowly, “you ask questions and people fill in the blanks.”

“That can happen,” she said. “But it’s not the complete story.”

There it was.

A crack in the mystery.

Not in her tone she didn’t perform mystery.

She simply stated it as a fact.

I shifted in my seat. “Right. Well. Let’s test it.”

Claire’s gaze stayed steady. “Test away.”

I folded my arms because, apparently, I am a man who thinks folded arms are intellectual armour.

“Tell me something,” I said, “without me giving you anything.”

Claire didn’t flinch.

She didn’t smile like a magician about to pull a rabbit out of a hat. She simply looked at me for a moment, then glanced down at her notebook.

The notebook was plain, with no pentagrams, no crystals on top, just paper.

“You have a tendency to narrate your life as if you’re writing a report,” she said.

I bristled. “That’s hardly psychic.”

“No,” she agreed. “That’s an observation.”

I opened my mouth, then closed it.

She continued almost casually: “And when you’re stressed, you organise things. You straighten. You align. You fix.”

I stared at her.

“And you talk to your plants,” she added, and something like humour flickered in her eyes.

Heat crept up my neck.

“My daughters told you that.”

Claire shook her head. “No.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Then how…”

“It’s in the way you described your week,” she said. “And the way you’re sitting. You have soil under your thumbnail.”

I looked down.

There it was. A tiny crescent of dirt I hadn’t noticed.

Damn it.

Claire waited, letting my irritation burn itself out.

Then, gently, she said, “I want to ask about your wife.”

My stomach tightened.

I said nothing.

Claire didn’t rush.

She let the silence settle, not as a weapon but as a space.

Finally, I exhaled. “Her name was Angela.”

Claire nodded. “Angela.”

Hearing her name spoken by someone outside my family felt strange. Like handing a precious object to a stranger and watching them hold it carefully.

“How long were you married?” she asked.

“Twenty-five years,” I said, the number sharp and clean.

“Do you still speak to her?” Claire asked.

I almost laughed. “No.”

Claire didn’t react, but her eyes stayed on mine. “Do you speak to her in your head?”

The laugh died. I swallowed. “Sometimes.”

Claire nodded again, as if this was not unusual, not embarrassing, not a sign I was losing my mind.

“She had a phrase,” Claire said.

My blood went cold.

I blinked. “What?”

Claire looked down at her notebook again, then back up. Her tone was quiet, almost conversational, like she was commenting on the weather.

“She had a phrase she used when you were overthinking,” she said. “She’d say it to cut through your spirals.”

My mouth went dry. “No.”

Claire’s expression didn’t change.

She didn’t look triumphant.

She didn’t lean forward dramatically.

She simply said, “She’d say, ‘Tommy, come back to the room.’”

The world tilted.

Not dramatically, not in a cinematic way, but just a subtle shift, like a foundation settling in a way it shouldn’t.

Nobody called me Tommy.

Not since I was a boy. Not since Angela.

And that sentence, Tommy, come back to the room wasn’t just a phrase. It was a doorway.

Angela used it when I’d disappear into my head, into plans and problems and anxious calculations. She’d say it with a half-smile, like she knew exactly where I’d gone and wasn’t angry about it.

It always brought me back not because it was clever, but because it was hers.

I stared at Claire, and my heart hammered fast and stupidly.

“That’s…” I began.

Denial rose first. Immediate. Protective.

“You could have found that online,” I said, because my brain needed an exit.

Claire’s gaze stayed steady. “How?”

“I don’t know,” I snapped. “Social media. A post. My daughters.”

“They don’t know that phrase,” Claire said, not defensively, just factually. “Not unless Angela used it around them.”

“She didn’t,” I said too quickly. “That was between us.”

Claire nodded once, like she’d expected that.

Anger followed denial, as it always does when grief is touched unexpectedly.

“You shouldn’t say things like that,” I said, my voice sharper than I intended. “It’s not it’s not fair.”

Claire didn’t flinch. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t get to,” I stopped, because I could hear how childish I sounded, how raw.

Tenderness came in last, unwanted.

A strange, aching warmth behind my ribs, because for a second, just a second, it was like Angela had spoken again.

My eyes stung, and I hated that.

I looked away, blinking hard, focusing on the edge of the bookshelf, the clean line where wall met skirting board. Straight. Safe. Measurable.

“How?” I asked finally, quieter.

Claire took a breath. “I don’t always know,” she said. “Sometimes it’s like a thought that isn’t mine. A sentence that arrives fully formed.”

“That sounds convenient,” I muttered.

Claire’s mouth twitched. “It does. Which is why I don’t blame you for doubting it.”

I stared at her, mind racing. Cracks are forming in certainty.

“All right,” I said, swallowing. “Fine. If you’re so… accurate.”

Here comes the test. The intellectual trap. My desperate attempt to build scaffolding around a moment that had just knocked a hole in my walls.

“Tell me something else,” I said. “But I’m not giving you anything.”

Claire nodded. “Okay.”

I sat back, folding my arms again, as if that would stop my heart from doing its frantic little dance.

Claire looked at me, and for the first time, I noticed something else: she wasn’t enjoying this. She wasn’t feeding off my reaction. She looked carefully. Almost burdened by it.

“Angela had a habit,” she said slowly, “when she was cooking. She’d tap the wooden spoon twice on the edge of the pot before she put it down.”

My breath caught.

It was so specific and so stupidly domestic.

A detail that doesn’t get shared in stories because it seems too small. But that was the thing: love lived in small habits.

Angela did that. Twice, always twice.

I remembered the sound. Tap-tap. The rhythm of home.

My throat tightened. I stared at Claire, unable to speak.

Claire didn’t push.

She didn’t say, See? Believe me now.

She simply said, “I don’t think she wants you to stop loving her.”

I flinched.

“She wants you to stop punishing yourself,” Claire added, her voice quiet.

I opened my mouth to argue, to demand proof, to accuse her of manipulation, but the words wouldn’t organise themselves.

Because I knew. Somewhere deep down, I knew that was exactly what I’d been doing, punishing myself disguised as loyalty.

I forced myself to inhale and then exhale.

Controlled breathing, like I was trying to stabilise a structure in a storm.

“Alright,” I said finally, voice rough. “So, what now?”

Claire’s gaze softened. “Now we just sit with it,” she said. “You don’t have to decide anything today.”

I hated how reasonable she was, and I hated how much I wanted to keep sitting there.

We spoke a little more after that, but my memory of it is blurred, like the brain doesn’t quite know where to file moments that don’t fit existing categories. I remember her offering me water. I remember my hands shaking slightly as I lifted the glass. I remember her not noticing in a way that made me feel less exposed.

When the session ended, I stood too quickly.

“I need to go,” I said kindly. Just well, overwhelmed.

Claire nodded. “Of course.”

At the door, she said, “If you want to come back, you can. If you don’t, that’s okay too.”

I nodded, unable to speak properly. I stepped outside into the bright Australian afternoon, blinking as if I’d come out of a cinema.

The air smelled of hot concrete and eucalyptus. Cars hissed past on the road. Life carried on, rude in its normality.

I didn’t drive home. I left the car there. I would get an Uber later to pick it up.

I walked because movement felt safer than stillness.

The footpath stretched ahead; the sun glinting off shop windows, people carrying bags, laughing, living. My thoughts churned like a storm in a glass.

Denial. Anger. Tenderness.

And underneath it all, something else: a crack.

A shift. A small collapse of certainty I hadn’t realised I was relying on.

I replayed her words again and again, trying to find the trick in them. Trying to locate the seam where manipulation might be stitched in.

But the phrase Tommy, come back to the room wasn’t something you guessed. It wasn’t something you fished for. It wasn’t a horoscope.

It was Angela.

It was the sound of her pulling me gently out of my head, back into life.

By the time I reached my street, my legs ached, and my mind was still racing.

I unlocked the front door, stepped inside, and stood in the hallway where the quiet met me like an old habit.

In the lounge, the jumper was still on the chair.

I looked at it for a long moment.

Then I heard the sentence again, not in Claire’s voice now, but in my wife’s, clear as if she were standing in the kitchen, wooden spoon in hand.

Tommy, come back to the room.

And I realised, with a mixture of dread and longing, that I’d been trying not to come back for years.

 

 

CHAPTER  5

When the Past Sits Between Us

 

Tom

 

The room feels different this time. I notice it the moment I sit down, which is ridiculous because nothing has changed. Same chairs. Same light. Same carefully neutral walls that ask nothing of you. And yet the air feels heavier, like a third presence has arrived early and settled in.

Angela has always hated being late.

Claire notices it too. I can tell by the way she pauses before sitting, the way she inhales a little deeper than usual, as if checking the emotional weather.

“You don’t have to do anything today,” she says gently. “You don’t have to prove anything.”

“I know,” I say. “That’s part of the problem.”

She smiles a small, understanding grin and sits opposite me.

For a moment, neither of us speaks.

The silence isn’t awkward; it is attentive, the type that waits instead of presses.

“I’ve been thinking about her,” I say finally.

“I thought you might be,” Claire replies.

I nod.

My hands are folded in my lap, too neat, and I think even defensive.

“She’s… closer,” I say, frowning slightly. “Not in a haunting way. Just present.”

Claire doesn’t jump on the word.

She doesn’t say that’s common, or that’s normal.

She just listens.

“Before,” I continue, “she was like an outline. A loss. A fact. Now she’s detailed again. Annoyingly so.”

Claire smiles. “What details?”

I hesitate, then exhale.

“The way she’d hum without realising it,” I say.

“Always off-key. And the way she’d read the last few pages of a book first and then deny it.”

“That’s a terrible habit,” Claire says.

“I told her that,” I say, and for a second, I almost laugh.

Almost.

“She was very alive,” Claire says, not as a statement, but as an invitation.

“Yes,” I say quietly. “She really was.”

The word was land between us. Heavy but honest.

Claire nods once. “Tell me about her.”

So, I do.

I talk about Angela’s laugh, how it started in her shoulders before it reached her mouth. I talk about the way she hated my early designs because they were too clever and not kind enough. I talk about how she’d sit on the kitchen bench and swing her legs while I cooked, offering commentary like a food critic who had never actually cooked a meal.

Claire doesn’t interrupt.

She doesn’t guide; she lets the memories come in their own shape, uneven and real.

“She used to say,” I add, swallowing, ‘For goodness’ sake, don’t make everything a problem to solve, Tom.’”

Claire smiles. “That sounds like good advice.”

“She married an architect,” I say. “She knew what she was getting into.”

And then, without warning, something in me gives.

Not dramatically.

No sobbing, no collapse, just a quiet failure of structure, like a beam that’s been holding too much for too long and finally admits it needs help.

“I miss her,” I say.

The words feel absurdly small for the weight they carry.

Claire doesn’t reach for tissues.

She doesn’t tell me it’s okay.

She simply stays.

“I know,” she says softly.

And that’s when my eyes sting.

Not because she said anything profound, but because she didn’t try to make it better.

“I don’t know how to miss her and still be here,” I admit. “It feels like any forward step leaves her behind.”

Claire tilts her head slightly. “What if it doesn’t?”

I shake my head. “It feels like it does.”

She considers that. “Feelings aren’t evidence,” she says gently. “But they are information.”

I breathe that in. It fixes nothing, and it doesn’t need to.

By the time the session ends, I feel wrung out and oddly steadied, like a house that’s survived a storm and discovered it’s still standing.

“I usually need a walk after this,” I say, standing.

Claire nods. “Would you like a coffee instead?”

The question hangs there, not psychic, not professional, just human.

I hesitate for exactly the length of time it takes to realise I want to say yes.

“Yes,” I say.

 

Claire

 

I probably shouldn’t have suggested coffee.

I know that. I know the boundaries. I’ve built my entire working life around them, careful lines drawn in invisible ink. But something about Tom, the way he carries his grief like a responsibility, not a wound, makes those lines feel less rigid.

We walk to a café two streets over.

It’s small, unpretentious, with scratched tables and a barista who knows my order without asking. Tom notices everything, of course: the way the space flows, the uneven tiles near the counter.

“You’d redesign this,” I say.

“I’d leave it alone,” he replies. “It knows what it is.”

I like that answer.

We sit outside and find that the afternoon is mild, forgiving. A Sydney day that doesn’t demand joy but allows it if it happens.

Tom stirs his coffee longer than necessary.

“I should probably ask you something,” he says.

I brace myself accusations are part of the job.

“Are you always that accurate?” he asks instead.

I consider how to answer.

“I don’t think of it as accuracy,” I say slowly. “I think of it as… attunement.”

He observes me. Not suspiciously, just curious.

“And does it ever get in the way?” he asks.

“Yes,” I say. Immediately, and to my surprise, honestly.

He waits.

“I’ve never had a long-term relationship,” I continue. “Not really.”

Tom’s eyebrows lift slightly, but he doesn’t comment.

“Sometimes,” I say, choosing my words, “I sense something isn’t right. Not dangerous. Just misaligned. And I don’t pursue it.”

“That sounds lonely,” he says.

“It can be,” I admit. “But it’s also protective.”

He nods, as if that makes perfect sense.

“I don’t usually talk about this,” I add. “With clients.”

He smiles faintly. “I suppose I’m not entirely a client anymore.”

The truth of this statement lands softly and heavily all at once.

“I should tell you,” I say carefully, “that what happens in sessions doesn’t mean obligation. Or destiny. Or even a connection in the way people imagine it.”

“I know,” Tom says. “And yet.”

“And yet,” I echo.

I watch him over the rim of my cup.

He’s thoughtful. Grounded.

There’s a steadiness in him that feels familiar.

Comfortable, and that’s what worries me.

Usually, when something isn’t right, I feel it early. A tightening. A warning hummed under the skin.

I’m not feeling that now.

“I don’t get those misalignment signals with you,” I say finally. “And that concerns me.”

Tom blinks. “Why?”

“Because it means I don’t know where this is going,” I say. “And I like knowing.”

He chuckles. “You and me both.”

We sit in companionable silence for a moment, watching a couple argue affectionately over a pram, watching life continue its unapologetic momentum.

“I don’t want to replace her,” Tom says suddenly.

“I wouldn’t let you,” I reply without thinking.

Our eyes meet.

The line between professional and personal blurs, not dangerous, but undeniable.

“I think,” I say more gently, “that love doesn’t vacate space. It makes more of it.”

Tom considers that, then nods.

“Angela would have liked you,” he says.

The comment catches me off guard, more than any accusation could have.

“I hope so,” I say.

As we stand to leave, I feel it again, that sense of something shifting, not wrong, not right. Just new.

And for the first time in a long while, I don’t step away from it.

 

 

CHAPTER 6

The Architect and the Medium

 

Tom

 

It starts the moment she doesn’t speak. Silence, I’ve learned, is rarely empty, and it has load-bearing properties, and Claire’s silences, measured, intentional, never hurried, have structure.

I notice it as I sit down for what is technically another session and practically something else entirely. She doesn’t open her notebook straight away this time. She waits and lets the room settle.

That pause tells me more than anything she could say.

She’s careful with space, with timing, with what she reveals and when. She builds conversations the way I design rooms, leaving gaps where people can breathe, where meaning can arrive on its own terms.

I realise, faintly horrified, that I’m analysing her the way I analyse buildings.

And worse, that is the way I analyse people when I am caring for that person.

“You’re doing it again,” Claire says.

“Doing what?”

“Thinking instead of arriving.”

I huff a laugh. “Occupational hazard.”

She smiles.

“You hide in your head when things feel unstable.”

“Pot. Kettle.”

“Fair,” she says.

I lean back, folding my hands, studying her now with intent rather than defence.

She’s guarded but not closed, and I see that there’s a difference. Closed is sealed, while guarded is selective. She chooses what to reveal with care, not fear. Her posture is relaxed but alert, like someone used to being watched and misunderstood.

“What made you do this?” I ask suddenly.

She blinks. “This?”

“This,” I say, gesturing vaguely. “Listening to strangers. Holding their stories.”

She considers me for a moment, as if deciding how much truth to spend.

“I didn’t plan it,” she says finally.

“I started noticing things as a kid. Feelings that weren’t mine. Sentences that arrived fully formed. I thought everyone experienced that.”

“And when you realised, they didn’t?”

“I tried to ignore it,” she says. “That went badly.”

I nod. Suppression rarely improves structural integrity.

“It’s lonely work,” she continues. “People come to me in their rawest state. And then they leave. They take the meaning, and I stay with the residue.”

“That sounds unsustainable.”

She shrugs. “You learn where to reinforce.”

I smile at that.

There’s humour between us now.

Dry, mutual, and comfortable. The kind that doesn’t perform.

She tells me about clients who want certainty, who want guarantees, who want her to tell them exactly how their lives will unfold.

“And when you don’t?” I ask.

“Some get angry,” she says. “Some get scared. Some decide I’m a fraud.”

“And that doesn’t bother you?”

She hesitates just a fraction.

“It used to,” she admits. “Being believed is intoxicating, while being doubted is exhausting.”

I watch her fingers trace the rim of her cup.

A small grounding gesture.

“Do you ever wish you were ordinary?” I ask.

She laughs, short and surprised. “All the time.”

The answer lands heavier than expected.

After the session, if it still counts as one, we walk again. Coffee again, not because we need caffeine, but because movement and neutral territory make tough conversations easier.

I catch myself imagining her elsewhere.

In my kitchen, leaning against the counter while I cook. In my study, commenting on my plans. Sitting in Angela’s chair, no, not that, just in my life.

The image arrives uninvited.

Guilt follows immediately, sharply, and precisely.

I push it away.

Angela is not gone because I imagine another woman. Love doesn’t evaporate that easily.

Still, the loyalty reflex is strong. Protective, almost feral.

“Where did you learn to listen like that?” I ask Claire, desperate to redirect.

She smiles faintly. “From not being listened to.”

That stops me.

“People assume that because I sense things, I’m always confident,” she continues. “I’m not. I just trust the information more than my fear.”

I nod slowly. “That’s a skill.”

“It’s a cost,” she says. “You don’t get to pretend ignorance.”

We walk in silence for a bit. Comfortable and companionable.

I realise with a quiet jolt that I’m no longer attending sessions.

I’m anticipating her.

And that realisation, gentle, undeniable, feels both terrifying and oddly stabilising.

Claire

 

Tom is watching me differently now. Not suspiciously, not defensively. Architecturally.

He studies my pauses, my angles, the way I redirect instead of blocking. It’s unnerving in a way that feels earned. He isn’t trying to dismantle me. He’s trying to understand how I hold together.

That’s rare.

Most people either romanticise what I do or challenge it. Very few ask what it costs.

“Do you ever get tired of carrying other people’s grief?” he asks as we sit with our coffee.

“Yes,” I say. “But not in the way you think.”

He waits.

“I don’t mind the grief,” I continue. “Grief is honest. It doesn’t pretend. What’s tiring is the expectation that I’ll fix it. That I’ll make it go away.”

“I wouldn’t want that,” he says.

“I know,” I reply, and I do. That’s the thing.

There’s an easiness with him that unsettles me.

He doesn’t try to impress or extract; he doesn’t treat me like an oracle or a trick.

He treats me like a person who holds something unusual.

That matters.

“I’ve never had a long relationship,” I admit again, more clearly this time. “Not because I didn’t want one. Because sometimes I sense a future fracture. A misalignment that hasn’t happened yet.”

“And you step away,” Tom says.

“Yes.”

“And with me?”

I hesitate.

“With you,” I say carefully, “I don’t sense that.”

His eyes meet mine. Searching. Not hopeful. Just open.

“That scares you,” he says.

“Yes.”

He nods, as if that makes perfect sense.

“I’m not easy,” he offers.

“I’m not asking for easy,” I reply.

We finish our coffee, and we stand while the afternoon light slants low, warm, and forgiving.

As we part ways, I feel it again, that sense of something not scripted, not predicted.

A structure forming without blueprints.

I should be cautious. I am cautious.

But for the first time in a long while, I’m also curious.

And that, I suspect, is how all meaningful designs begin.

 

CHAPTER 7

Outside the Room

 

If you’d told me a year ago that I’d be sitting in my local pub on a Thursday night, voluntarily, without a family obligation or a funeral wake as an excuse, I would have asked what medication you’d mixed into my tea.

If you’d told me I’d be there because I’d wanted to be out of the house, because the walls had felt less like shelter and more like a paused life, I would have laughed and changed the subject.

And if you’d told me I’d run into Claire, by accident, and that the meeting would feel normal in the way that makes you want to cry later, I would have called you delusional.

But life doesn’t consult your predictions.

It simply turns up with its sleeves rolled, looking mildly apologetic, and says: Righto, here we go.

I hadn’t booked another session after the last one.

That had been deliberate, not because I didn’t want to see her, but because I was trying slowly, clumsily, to practise something that looked like independence.

Something that wasn’t built on appointments and permission slips.

Continue, she’d said. Do not move on; just continue.

So, I did small, continuing things.

I went for walks without turning them into a memorial march.

I cooked meals that weren’t just for survival, and I opened the curtains in the morning, and I answered phone calls without bracing for a lecture.

I even started taking on a slightly larger job, a modest rebuild for a young couple in Camden. They were enthusiastic in that exhausting way young people can be, using words like dream home and forever space.

Normally, that sort of optimism would have irritated me. Instead, it just existed, and I let it.

A few days after that last session, I found myself restless at about six o’clock. Not sad, not panicked, just restless, like my body had too much unused energy and nowhere sensible to put it.

The house was quiet in the way it always is now. A quiet that isn’t peace, exactly more like an unanswered question.

I stood in the kitchen holding the kettle as if I’d forgotten what it was for. Then I set it down and looked out the window. The sky turned that soft Australian dusk colour, fading blue, pink bruises on the horizon.

I thought briefly about Angela.

Not in the sharp, collapsing way.

In a steady way, like she’d become part of the weather in my head. Present but not intrusive.

She would have told me to get out of the house; she would have said it as if it were the most obvious solution in the world.

Go have a Great Northern Super Crisp, Tommy. You’re not a lighthouse. You don’t have to stand there all night.

So, I put on a shirt that didn’t scream widower in hiding, a nice neutral button-up, not too new, and I drove down to the local.

It’s a proper pub, the kind that’s been there longer than most of the surrounding houses. Low ceilings with dark timber. Carpet that has survived decades of spilled drinks and human decisions. It smells like beer and chips, and the faint ghost of every conversation held there since the nineteen seventies.

I ordered a schooner and found a quiet spot near the side window, where I could watch the street and pretend, I wasn’t there for company.

That’s when I saw her.

At first, my brain rejected it.

Like, no, that’s not possible.

That’s a coincidence too neat for life.

That’s what happens in novels where the author is trying to move the plot along, and I know this because I read a lot of books by J. F. Nodar, a local author in the area, and that is his modus operandi.

But there she was.

Claire.

Not in her office.

Not framed by calm light and careful silence.

Not holding a notebook or wearing her professional steadiness like a uniform.

Just Claire.

In jeans, a dark jumper, hair down and laughing at something a woman beside her had said, her shoulders shaking a little with it.

The sound hit me strangely.

Not because it was loud, because it wasn’t, but because it was ordinary, so real and so unfiltered.

I sat there frozen like a stunned possum, watching her as if she might evaporate if I moved.

Of course, she didn’t; instead; she turned slightly, scanning the room, and her eyes landed on me.

The recognition was immediate.

I saw it flicker across her face. Surprise, a quick calculation, then something softer.

She smiled.

Not the professional smile she used in sessions.

This one was different: small, genuine, almost cautious.

She excused herself from her friend and walked over.

“Tom,” she said, stopping beside my table like she wasn’t sure if this was allowed. “Hi.”

“Hi,” I managed.

My heart did that irritating thing again, like it was fourteen and had never learned dignity.

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” she said.

“I didn’t expect to be here,” I replied, which was true and also unhelpfully revealing.

Claire’s eyes crinkled. “Is this you continuing?”

I huffed a laugh. “Don’t start.”

She held up her hands. “No shop talk. Promise.”

“Good,” I said, and then realised I sounded disappointed. “I mean, good.”

She nodded toward the empty chair opposite me. “May I?”

“You can,” I said too quickly. “Yes. Of course.”

She sat, tucking one leg under the other.

The movement was casual, unceremonious. My brain kept trying to put her back in the office, to assign her a role it understood, but she refused to fit neatly now.

“You look different,” she said, and there it was again: her gentle directness.

“Do I?” I asked, defensive by instinct.

“A bit,” she said. “Less braced.”

I blinked. “That’s a very specific observation.”

She shrugged. “I notice things.”

“Unfortunately,” I muttered.

She laughed, and it startled me how much I liked it.

We sat there for a moment, and I realised something else: there was no pressure. No agenda, no session timer, no meaningful silence waiting for me to cry into it.

Just two adults in a pub, making awkward small talk like normal people.

“So,” I said, because someone had to. “Are you here with friends?”

“My friend Tash,” she said, tilting her head toward the bar. “She’s been trying to get me out of the house for weeks.”

I nodded. “That seems to be the season for it.”

Claire’s smile softened. “And you?”

I gestured vaguely. “Restlessness. Poor decisions. A desire to prove I can exist in public.”

“That’s a very architect way to say you went for a beer,” she said.

“Architects over-explain,” I replied.

“It’s part of your charm,” she said, and the word charm landed like a pebble tossed into still water, ripples spreading without permission.

I swallowed and took a sip of beer, and pretended the beer required my full attention.

“No shop talk,” she reminded gently, and I realised she’d seen the shift in me, the moment I’d spiralled.

“Right,” I said. “Normal conversation.”

“Yes.”

“What do you like?” I asked, then immediately wanted to throw myself into the nearest fireplace. “Not like I mean…”

Claire’s eyes sparkled.

“Likes. As in favourite things?”

“Yes,” I said firmly. “Favourite things. Like a normal person.”

She laughed again, and it made me feel oddly brave.

“All right,” she said, considering. “I like pistachio ice cream.”

“That’s very specific.”

“It’s the best flavour,” she said with complete sincerity. “It tastes like someone tried, which is more than I can say for vanilla.”

I snorted. “Vanilla is a reliable classic.”

“Vanilla is what you choose when you’re afraid of commitment,” she said.

I stared at her. “That feels like a personal attack.”

She grinned. “Maybe it is.”

I felt something warm loosen in my chest.

A laugh rose unexpectedly and escaped before I could restrain it.

Claire leaned back, pleased.

“See? Out in public, laughing. Who even are you?”

“Don’t get used to it,” I warned.

“And” she continued, “I like pineapple pizza.”

I nearly choked on my beer.

“No.”

“Yes,” she said, unapologetic.

“That’s illegal,” I said.

“It’s Australian,” she corrected. “And delicious.”

“It’s controversial,” I said.

“It’s misunderstood,” she replied.

I shook my head in mock despair. “This new information changes everything.”

“Good,” she said.

There was something in her tone then, not heavy, but honest.

We talked like that for a while.

About small things, about terrible movies, about the weather doing what it always does, about how people take coffee orders far too seriously, about my work, but only in the broadest sense. No grief, no death, and no permission.

And yet, somehow, there was more intimacy in that ordinary conversation than in some of the most profound talks I’d had in years.

Because it wasn’t about survival, it was about living.

At some point, Tash came over, eyebrow raised, and Claire introduced us.

“This is Tom,” she said. “He’s… an architect.”

The hesitation amused me.

“He’s also apparently anti-pineapple,” she added, with a look of mock accusation.

Tash laughed. “A man of questionable ethics.”

“Exactly,” Claire said.

Tash went back to her table after a few minutes, leaving us again.

“Does she know about your work?” I asked carefully.

Claire nodded. “In a general way. She doesn’t ask much. It makes her uncomfortable.”

“And you?” I asked.

Claire’s gaze drifted to her glass.

“It makes most people uncomfortable.”

There it was: the quiet cost, slipping into the conversation without forcing its way in.

“You must get sick of that,” I said.

She shrugged.

“Sometimes. But it’s easier than being treated like a party trick.”

I nodded slowly. “I’m sorry.”

Claire looked at me then, really looked.

“You don’t do that, Tom,” she said.

“Do what?”

“Turn me into a trick,” she said. “Even when you doubt me, you don’t cheapen it.”

I swallowed.

“I don’t know how to cheapen anything,” I said, aiming for humour. “I’m an architect. We’re incapable of simplicity.”

Claire smiled. “There it is.”

We sat in silence after that.

Not awkward.

Not forced.

Just… quiet.

I realised I didn’t feel the urge to fill it. I didn’t need to perform competence or scepticism. I could just be there.

Eventually, Claire glanced at her watch.

“I should go,” she said.

“Right,” I replied, and I hated how quickly disappointment flickered through me.

She stood, pulling her jumper down, and then paused.

“This was nice,” she said softly.

“Yes,” I said. “It was.”

No promises.

No scheduling.

She hesitated, then added, “Take care, Tom.”

“You too,” I said.

And then she walked back to her friend, and I watched her go with a strange mixture of calm and ache.

When I finally left the pub, the night air was cool and smelled faintly of damp grass. The streetlights made the footpath glow a pale gold.

As I drove home, I felt something I hadn’t felt in a long time.

Not happiness, not exactly, but maybe a possibility.

And I didn’t immediately crush it.

 

The next day, Emma rang.

“Dinner at yours,” she said, as if it were her decision and I was merely the venue. “We’ll bring everyone. No arguments.”

“I wasn’t going to argue,” I said.

“You were,” she replied.

Fair.

By six o’clock, my house was full again.

Not full in the way it used to be when Angela was alive, because that kind of fullness had its own texture, its own warmth, but full enough to make the silence retreat.

The grandchildren ran through the hallway like a stampede of small, joyful disasters. The husbands, Mark, and Sam, helped with plates and pretended not to be mildly terrified of my kitchen layout. Emma and Emily hovered, watching me in that way they do when they’re checking for cracks in your voice.

I cooked. Properly cooked. Not just grill something and call it dinner. I made roast chicken with lemon and garlic, potatoes, and a salad that wasn’t from a bag.

At one point, while I was stirring gravy, I realised I was humming.

It wasn’t good.

Angela would have mocked me mercilessly, still.

Emma noticed.

Of course she did, and her eyes flicked to Emily, a silent message passing between them.

They said nothing, which meant everything.

At the table, Jack leaned toward me. “You look different.”

“Do I?” I asked, wary.

“You’re not grumpy,” Lily announced, as if stating a scientific fact.

“I am always grumpy,” I protested.

“No,” Jack said. “You’re like normal grumpy. Not sad, grumpy.”

I stared at him, unsure whether to laugh or cry.

“Thank you,” I said finally. “I think.”

Sam grinned. “Kids are brutal.”

“They’re accurate,” Mark added.

Emma watched me over her wineglass, her expression soft.

I felt it then, an odd pressure behind my ribs.

Not grief, not quite it was relief.

Not because I’d been fixed.

Not because anything was solved.

But because something in me had returned without announcement, without permission, without a dramatic moment where I declared I was ready.

It had just come back.

After dinner, while the kids argued about dessert and the husbands pretended to understand my football commentary, Emma came into the kitchen.

“You’re doing okay,” she said quietly.

“I’m fine,” I said automatically, then caught myself. “I’m better.”

Emma nodded, as if that was the only answer she’d been waiting for.

“Did something happen?” she asked.

I hesitated. I could have lied. I didn’t.

“I ran into Claire,” I said.

Emma’s eyes widened. “Claire? Like Claire, the physic Claire?”

“Yes.”

“In her office?”

“No,” I said. “At the pub.”

Emma blinked, then smiled slowly carefully. “Was it… nice?”

“It was normal,” I said.

Emma’s smile softened. “Normal is nice.”

I nodded.

She didn’t push, and she didn’t ask if I liked her, or if it meant anything, or if I was betraying Mum’s memory.

She just squeezed my arm once and went back to the chaos, letting me keep my fragile, newly forming truth.

Later, after everyone had left and the house settled back into quiet, I stood in the doorway of the lounge room.

Angela’s jumper was still on the chair.

It would probably always be there, in some form. Even if not the jumper, then the imprint of it. The memory of her in that space.

I didn’t feel guilty for noticing the chair.

I also didn’t feel guilty for thinking about Claire as I washed the last glass.

Not destiny, I told myself, not a sign, not a cosmic plan.

Just real.

Two adults in a pub. Discussing pistachio ice cream and pineapple pizza with laughter that hadn’t asked permission.

Choosing life without guarantees.

And for the first time, that didn’t feel reckless.

It felt like continuing.

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

 

 

CHAPTER 8

The Future Is Not a Reading

 

Architects are trained to think in future terms. That’s the job, really, to look at an empty block of land and see a family dinner that hasn’t happened yet. To stare at a slab of concrete and imagine bare feet on warm tiles, a dog that doesn’t exist yet scratching at a back door, a teenager slamming a bedroom door they haven’t moved into. We design for lives we will never witness in full, and we do it with a straight face, as if imagining is something you can put on an invoice.

For a long time after Angela died, that part of me shut down.

I still drew.

Still measured, still delivered plans on time, but I stopped seeing the future.

My work became safer, smaller, and more practical.

I chose renovations because they didn’t ask me to imagine a beginning. Restorations because they felt like loyalty. Existing structures, existing lives, existing stories with nothing new required.

I told myself I was being sensible, but I see now I was building a bunker.

Grief does that. Not in the dramatic way people expect not as constant sobbing or collapsing in supermarkets, but as a slow narrowing of possibility.

A quiet refusal to expand.

You keep breathing, you keep paying bills, you keep answering “I’m fine,” and you don’t realise you’ve designed your life around not being surprised.

Then Claire arrived.

Not as a thunderclap, not as fate, not even as a romantic plot twist, just… a disruption.

A woman in a calm room with pleasant light and a terrible website font, who asked practical questions and didn’t perform. A woman who said a sentence I hadn’t heard since my wife was alive and cracked something open that I’d been calling “control.”

I’ve spent months, if I’m honest, trying to categorise her.

Psychic.

Fraud.

Maybe a therapist in disguise.

Or a clever observer.

Coincidence collector.

None of those boxes fit neatly, and that has bothered me more than it should.

Because I like neatness, I like clean lines; I like things that either stand or collapse.

But people don’t work like that.

Love doesn’t work like that, and grief certainly doesn’t.

The truth is, I don’t know if Claire’s gift is supernatural or deeply human.

I don’t know if she is sensing something beyond the room or simply reading the tiny tremors in a man who has spent three years trying to look like a stable structure while the foundation shifts.

And the strangest thing is that it no longer matters.

Not because truth doesn’t matter, but because the effect does.

She didn’t sell me heaven.

She didn’t offer me, Angela, back in exchange for belief.

She didn’t ask for devotion or dependency.

She offered permission.

Not to move on, but to continue.

And in doing that, she gave me something I didn’t realise I’d been withholding from myself: the right to remain loyal and still live.

I used to think loyalty meant staying exactly where Angela left me, like a bookmark pressed into a page and never turned.

But Angela never loved me for my stillness.

She loved me for my mind, yes, for the way I could see structure in chaos and make something usable from it. But she also loved my movement. The way I’d get excited about an idea. The way I’d start drawing on napkins. The way I’d see a problem and refuse to leave it unsolved.

She didn’t marry a man built for stagnation.

She married a man who made spaces.

Somewhere along the line, after she died, I stopped making space and started making walls, and I thought it was protection, but it was fear.

And fear, I’ve learned, can look remarkably like devotion if you squint at it long enough.

The night I ran into Claire at the pub, nothing mystical happened. No messages, no revelations, no phrases from the dead. Just a conversation that included pistachio ice cream, pineapple pizza, and laughter.

It was just so ordinary that I felt something return not Angela, but me. The version of me that could exist in a room without bracing for collapse.

My daughters noticed the next night at dinner.

They said nothing, which, as far as Emma and Claire are concerned, is practically a declaration of war. But they held back.

They watched me cook; they watched me hum; they watched me argue with Jack about whether ghosts get Medicare. They watched me be alive, and they let it happen.

Later, when the house was quiet again, I stood in the lounge and looked at Angela’s jumper on the chair.

I didn’t move it; I didn’t fold it away, and I didn’t perform a symbolic letting go.

Because grief isn’t a single dramatic release.

It’s a series of tiny permissions, repeated.

I realised then that I’d been afraid of one particular thought, the one people say softly, as if it’s dangerous: You might love again.

I had treated that idea as a betrayal.

As if love were a finite resource, like water in a tank. As if giving any of it to someone new would drain what remained of Angela.

But love isn’t subtraction, for love is addition, and love doesn’t replace; it expands.

The love I had for Angela is not diminished because I think about another woman’s laugh. Angela’s love didn’t make me less capable of loving it made me more.

That’s what love does when it’s real. It teaches your heart how to hold.

And I can almost hear Angela now, in that tone she used when I overcomplicated everything:

Tommy, come back to the room.

So, I do. I keep coming back.

Not because the pain is gone, it isn’t, but because the room is still here.

Because life is still happening, because my daughters and grandchildren refuse to let me become a memorial, because Claire exists, not as an answer, but as a possibility.

And the possibilities are frightening, yes, but they’re also proof you’re still in motion.

I don’t book another session immediately after that.

Not because I’m done, but because I no longer want to make our connection a transaction. I don’t want to sit across from her in that designed room and always have my grief between us like a third chair.

I want, and the wanting surprises me, to know her outside of it.

So instead of booking, I do something I haven’t done in a long time.

I start drawing.

Not for a client, not for a council submission, and not for money.

Just… drawing.

I clear my desk properly for the first time in months.

I move Angela’s jumper gently to the back of the chair, not away, just not in the centre. I put fresh paper down. I sharpen a pencil, the old wooden kind I like, and I let my hand move.

The first lines are hesitant, like a person stepping back into a room they’re not sure they’re allowed to occupy.

Then they steady, and I draw a house.

Not a grand one.

Not a dream-home fantasy with endless glass and ridiculous rooflines.

Something modest, something thoughtful.

A place with a kitchen that opens onto a small backyard. A chair by a window where light falls in the afternoon. A study that isn’t a bunker, but a room designed for work and rest, not hiding.

I added a hallway wide enough for children to run down without knocking things over. I added a bench near the front door because Angela always wanted somewhere to sit while taking off shoes. I add a small shelf for keys, for letters, for the messy evidence of living.

And then, this is the part that makes my throat tighten: I leave space.

I don’t cram the design full. I don’t fill every corner with purpose. I leave a pocket of emptiness where light can enter.

A courtyard, perhaps, or a void between rooms.

A quiet place where the air moves, where shadows can fall without being feared.

I stare at it for a long time.

That space is not Angela’s absence.

It’s not the hole grief made.

It’s an allowance.

Room for memory, room for newness, room because my life will always carry both.

I lean back in my chair and look around my office.

The voucher is gone now, replaced by something less tangible and more dangerous: the understanding that the future is not a reading.

It’s not something you sit down and receive. It’s something you build, with trembling hands, with imperfect measurements, with choices you can’t fully justify.

You don’t need certainty to start.

You just need light, so I pick up my phone, but not to book a session.

I type a message instead.

Hi Claire. If you’re free, would you like to grab a coffee? No shop talk. I promise. Tom.

My thumb hovers for a second.

I can feel fear in my body, the old instinct to retreat, to stay loyal by staying still.

Then I think of Angela, of the way she used to tap the spoon twice and keep cooking. Of the way she lived without guarantees and still laughed anyway, and I hit send.

And for the first time in a long time, the silence that follows doesn’t feel like an ending, but it feels like a door left ajar.

A draft of possibility moving through like light, finding its way in.

 

 

CHAPTER 9

The Space Between Knowing

 

The text arrives while I’m standing at the sink, elbow-deep in soapsuds, staring out the window like I’m waiting for something to happen instead of actively avoiding thinking about it.

Hi Claire. If you’re free, would you like to grab a coffee? No shop talk. I promise. Tom.

I read it once.

Then again.

Then, I put the phone face down on the counter, as if it might start speaking aloud if I gave it the chance.

My first instinct is to check myself, not emotionally, but professionally. It’s a reflex honed over years of navigating other people’s expectations.

Before desire, before curiosity, before hope.

Scan for misalignment.

That quiet internal hum I’ve learned to trust.

The subtle tightening behind the ribs. The sense that something is already wrong, even if it hasn’t happened yet.

Nothing comes, and that is the problem.

I dry my hands slowly, deliberately, like movement might coax a reaction out of me.

Still nothing.

With most people, it happens early.

Sometimes instantly.

A static interference in the chest.

A sense of futures that don’t hold.

It isn’t dramatic it’s practical. Like realising a structure won’t support the weight it’s pretending it can carry.

I’ve ended relationships before the word relationship could even be spoken because of that feeling. I’ve walked away from kind men, interesting men, men who would have made sense on paper, because something in me said, not this.

Not danger, not disaster, just… no.

It’s saved me more times than I can count.

And now here I am, standing in my kitchen with a phone on the counter and no warning signal at all.

Which feels reckless.

I pick the phone up again.

Read the message a third time.

Tom didn’t ask for a reading.

He didn’t cloak it in ambiguity.

He didn’t pretend it was casual while hoping I’d do the emotional labour of interpreting it.

He asked for coffee.

And promised no shop talk.

That promise shouldn’t matter.

It does.

I move to the table and sit; the chair scraping softly against the floor. My apartment is quiet in that familiar way, not lonely exactly, but self-contained.

Intentional, for I’ve curated this space carefully over the years, building a life that didn’t require compromise with another person’s rhythms.

Everything here is chosen. The pale walls, the plants that don’t need constant attention, the IKEA bookshelf organised not by genre but by emotional weight, the freezer with exactly one tub of pistachio ice cream in it, because it’s my favourite and no one argues with me about it.

This life works, and that’s the danger.

I have never been afraid of being alone.

Loneliness, yes, but solitude? No, solitude has been my ally, my protection, my justification.

People assume my work makes me desperate for connection. It doesn’t.

If anything, it teaches you restraint.

Boundaries and the cost of proximity.

I know what people bring into a room when they’re grieving, when they’re hopeful, when they’re terrified.

I know how easy it is to mistake resonance for destiny.

And Tom… Tom resonates.

That’s what unsettles me.

When I first met him, I thought he’d be like the others: polite, sceptical, guarded.

Curious but contained.

I didn’t expect the precision from him.

The way his mind moves.

The way he listens is as if he’s mapping a space, not just waiting for his turn.

I didn’t expect his grief to be so… intact.

Most grief arrives in fragments.

His grief arrived like it was architecture. Carefully reinforced. Load-bearing sadness. A man who had built his life around absence and called it stability.

I didn’t set out to change that.

I don’t do fixing.

But when Angela’s phrase arrived, Tommy, come back to the room, it didn’t feel like an intrusion. It felt as though permission had already been granted.

And ever since then, something has been shifting.

Not dramatically, but quietly, like light moving across a floor.

The pub confirmed it.

Seeing him outside the room, outside the context where I hold authority, where I am expected to know, changed everything.

He laughed. Easily. Without bracing.

He argued about pizza as if it mattered.

He looked at me like I was a woman, not a conduit.

That’s the part I can’t ignore.

I glance at my phone again.

Still no internal warning.

I close my eyes and ask myself the questions I always ask, the ones that keep me honest.

Am I curious because I feel something real, or because he feels safe?

Is this about connection or comfort?

Am I stepping toward something, or away from loneliness?

And the most dangerous question of all: Am I ready?

The answer isn’t a clean yes; it isn’t a no either; it’s… unfinished.

I think about the men I’ve walked away from because I knew how it would end. I think about the relationships I never let form because I sensed the fracture before the foundation was even poured.

I’ve always told myself that was wisdom.

But wisdom can become avoidance if you let it harden.

Tom doesn’t feel like a future I can predict.

And that’s new.

I stand and walk to the window, pressing my palm lightly against the glass. Outside, the street is quiet. A dog barks somewhere down the block. A car passes, unremarkable.

Ordinary life continues without consultation.

Tom isn’t asking me to see his future.

He isn’t asking me to tell him whether this will work.

He’s asking for coffee.

A meeting without roles, without readings, and without the room.

I exhale slowly.

The truth settles, not as certainty, but as clarity.

There is no misalignment because this isn’t a situation that requires foresight.

This is a situation that requires presence.

And presence, I know, is always a risk.

I return to the table and sit again, phone in hand.

I type, then delete.

Type again.

Delete again.

Not because I don’t know what to say, but because I do.

Because once I send it, something changes.

That’s always the cost.

I think of Tom’s daughters watching him quietly at dinner.

The way he spoke about Angela without collapsing into her absence.

The way he didn’t ask me to replace anything.

I think of my life as ordered, controlled, safe.

And I think of what I tell my clients when they ask me about choice.

That knowing doesn’t absolve you from deciding.

You still have to step up, so I type again.

Hi Tom. Tomorrow works. And thank you for asking like this.

I read it once.

Then I hit send before I can change my mind.

The phone goes quiet in my hand.

No fanfare. No sensation. No psychic confirmation.

Just the simple weight of a choice made without guarantees.

I sit there for a moment longer, letting the reality of it settle. I am not sure where this goes.

I am sure of one thing: for the first time in a long while; I am not stepping away because I already know the ending.

I am stepping forward because I don’t.

And that, finally, feels like the most rational decision of all.

 

 

CHAPTER 10

Upgrading the Plan

 

The worst part about deciding to do something brave is that your brain immediately starts negotiating the terms.

Claire said yes to coffee.

Not “yes” with fireworks, not “yes” with romantic punctuation, just a clean, sensible yes. Coffee. Tomorrow. Normal people things.

I should have been pleased.

I was pleased.

I was also… uneasy.

Coffee is a corridor space.

A threshold, a place where you can stand half in, half out, and call it a connection without committing to anything heavier than a flat white. Coffee is what you do when you want plausible deniability. When you want the option to say, Lovely chat, and go home with nothing changing shape.

And if there’s one thing I’ve learnt lately, it’s that I’m not good at half-measures anymore.

Or rather, I’m tired of them.

I woke the next morning with my mind already rehearsing. My body did that pre-event thing it used to do before client presentations: a buzzing under the skin, a list of contingencies, a desperate desire to control variables.

What do you wear to coffee with a woman who is not your psychic anymore but also somehow still… is?

How much do you talk?

How much do you hold back?

How do you sit across from someone and not blurt out, You cracked open my life, and now I don’t know what to do with the pieces?

No, coffee is not for that.

Coffee is for small talk and gentle laughter and pretending you aren’t thinking about her lipstick on the rim of a cup.

I stood in the kitchen with the kettle, stared at the bench, and realised something that made me snort out loud.

I was planning coffee the way I used to plan buildings I didn’t have the courage to design.

Too cautious, too safe, and too concerned with what could go wrong.

Angela would have taken the kettle off me and said, Tommy. Stop making everything a trial. You’re not on the witness stand.

And yet, I couldn’t shake the sense that coffee wasn’t honest enough.

Not for what was happening in me.

Not because I’d started anticipating Claire, not the sessions, not the readings, her.

Not because I had wanted her in my life in a way that didn’t fit in a takeaway cup.

If I was going to do this, whatever this was, I needed a table.

A proper setting, a structure that could hold a proper conversation without it feeling like an ambush.

A dinner date.

The word date made my stomach tighten.

I hadn’t said it out loud in years.

Not since Angela and since the world split into before and after. The idea of sitting across from another woman at night, with candles and menus and the implication of a future, felt like stepping onto a floor I wasn’t sure would support me.

But coffee felt like I was hiding.

And I didn’t want to hide anymore.

I paced my lounge room like a man trying to locate the exit in his own house. Angela’s jumper was still on the chair, watching me with quiet judgement. I didn’t know whether it was accusing me or daring me.

I picked up my phone, put it down, and picked it up again.

Calling was… a lot.

Texting would be easier. Safer. But texting is also where courage goes to become vague.

So, I called.

It rang twice.

Then her voice: “Hi, Tom.”

My heart did that annoying youthful thing again, the one I’d hoped had died along with my ability to stay up past ten without regret.

“Hi,” I said, trying to sound like a man who did this sort of thing regularly. “Have I caught you at a bad time?”

“No,” she said, though I could hear the question in her tone. Why are you calling?

Right. Don’t overthink. Say it clean.

“I got your message,” I said. “About coffee.”

“Mmm,” she replied. Neutral. Calm.

“And I was thinking,” I continued, “coffee is… nice.”

Silence.

Not awkward. Just attentive.

“But” I said, and there it was, the word that changes everything, “I don’t think coffee is the right… container.”

A pause.

“A container,” Claire repeated, amusement slipping in. “You’re still doing the architecture thing.”

“Sorry,” I said quickly. “It’s a reflex. What I mean is…”

“Tom,” she said softly. “Just tell me.”

I exhaled.

“I’d like to take you to dinner,” I said. “Properly.”

Silence again, but this time I felt it sharpen slightly, as if she’d straightened internally.

“Dinner,” she repeated.

“Yes.”

Her breath came through the phone. Measured.

“Why the change?” she asked.

Fair question.

Because coffee feels like I’m pretending, because I don’t trust myself not to spill my heart into a cappuccino, because I want to look at you in the evening and see what you’re like when the day isn’t doing half the work.

None of those was a sensible thing to say.

So, I chose the nearest honest one.

“Because dinner feels more… intentional,” I said. “And I’m trying,” I stopped, recalibrated. “I’m trying to be careful with you.”

Another pause. Longer this time.

I could hear something in it, not fear exactly, but caution. The line she was holding was between professional and personal, between what she allowed and what she didn’t.

“Tom,” she said, “I don’t usually do this. You know that.”

“I know,” I said. “And I’m not trying to pressure you. If you’d rather stick with coffee, we can. Or nothing. I’m not.”

“Stop,” she said gently. “You’re spiralling.”

I shut my mouth.

A small laugh came through the phone, not cruel. Familiar, almost. “You’re trying very hard.”

“Always,” I muttered.

“And that’s what’s interesting,” she said, and I couldn’t tell if she meant interesting as in sweet or interesting as in alarming.

Then she surprised me.

“All right,” she said.

I blinked, even though she couldn’t see it. “All right?”

“Yes,” she said. “Dinner.”

Relief hit me so fast it made me dizzy.

But then she added, “I’m a bit put off.”

There it was.

My throat tightened. “Right.”

“Not in a bad way,” she clarified quickly. “Just you changing pace like this isn’t you.”

“I’m aware,” I said dryly.

“It makes me curious,” she admitted.

“That’s a dangerous thing to admit,” I said.

Claire hummed the sound of someone smiling without fully giving in to it.

“Pick me up at seven,” she said.

I straightened instinctively, like I’d been handed a set of plans with an unexpected approval stamp. “Seven. Right.”

“I’ll make the booking,” she continued. “Somewhere I like. That way I won’t feel like I’m being led.”

That made sense. It would also help with her comfort. Her control.

“Of course,” I said. “Tell me where.”

“You’ll find out when you arrive,” she said, and I could hear the grin now.

“You’re going to make it mysterious,” I said.

“Don’t worry,” she replied. “No crystals. No incense.”

I laughed, a short, surprised sound, and it felt good. Normal.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll be there at seven.”

“Good,” she said softly. “And Tom?”

“Yeah?”

“No shop talk,” she said, firmer this time, a boundary reasserted.

“None,” I promised. “Not a word.”

“Goodbye,” she said.

“Bye,” I echoed.

The call ended.

I stood there with the phone in my hand, staring at nothing, my heart thumping as if I’d just signed off on a risky build.

Dinner.

An actual date.

I should have been terrified.

I was.

But underneath the fear was something steadier, a sense of forward motion that didn’t feel like betrayal.

It felt like a plan.

Not the kind that guarantees an outcome.

The kind that simply makes space for something to happen.

And for once, I didn’t immediately rush to control it.

I just stood in the quiet of my house, smiling at my stupidity, and thought: Right then, Tommy. Come back to the room.

 

 

CHAPTER 11

First Date: New Room

 

Claire

 

I am absolutely not nervous. This is the first lie of the evening, and I tell it to myself while standing in front of my wardrobe, as if it has betrayed me.

I have a system.

I always have a system.

Neutral colours for work. Comfortable elegance for solitude. Practical layers for days when other people’s emotions leak.

And then there is the red dress.

The red dress does not belong to any system.

I bought it six months ago on a day when I felt inexplicably brave and slightly reckless, which should have been my first clue. It is slinky without being obvious, fitted without being tight, the dress that doesn’t shout, look at me so much as notice me if you’re paying attention.

I have never worn it.

Until tonight, apparently.

I pull it out and hold it up, studying it as if it might suddenly confess its intentions.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I tell my reflection. “You are not trying to impress him.”

The reflection does not believe me.

I sigh, slip the dress over my head, and immediately feel like a woman who has made a decision instead of a calculation.

Which is unsettling.

I turn sideways, then turn towards the front, and then I look at the back.

The dress moves when I move.

No armour. No distractions.

“Well,” I mutter. “Darn, I look good in this, and this feels… dangerous.”

My phone buzzes on the dresser.

Tom: I’ll be there at seven.

Seven, which is now dangerously close.

I glance at the clock and then at myself again, suddenly hyper-aware of everything: hair, posture, the faint pulse at my throat.

I want tonight to be right.

Not perfect. Right.

If Tom is going to say something important, and I am convinced he is, then the setting matters.

Noise would flatten it. Bright lights would interrogate it.

Petite Maison.

I grab my phone and make the call.

“Petite Maison, good evening.”

“Hi,” I say. “I’d like to make a booking for two tonight. Seven-thirty.”

A pause. “We’re quite full this evening.”

“I was hoping,” I add carefully, “for something… quiet. A corner table, if possible.”

Another pause. Keyboard taps.

“We have one table available near the back,” the voice says. “It’s quite secluded.”

Perfect.

“Yes,” I say, relief warming my chest. “Please. Under Claire.”

“Of course.”

I hung up and let out a breath I didn’t realise I’d been holding.

There, if something meaningful is going to happen tonight, it will have the space to breathe.

I check my reflection one last time, add lipstick I never wear, then laugh at myself.

“You are behaving like a teenager,” I say.

The teenager smiles back.

 

Tom

 

I have owned this wardrobe for over a decade, and tonight it has betrayed me.

Everything looks wrong.

Too formal, too casual, too old, and too hopeful.

I stand in front of the mirror in my bedroom, wearing a shirt I have successfully worn many times before, and frown at it like it’s personally responsible for my current distress.

“No,” I tell it. “You’re trying too hard.”

I change shirts.

This one is the worst.

I sigh and glance toward the chair.

Angela’s jumper is still there, draped as if it’s been observing me for years.

“Well?” I ask it.

Silence.

Which is unhelpful.

I pull on another shirt, then stop, hands hovering over the buttons.

“Be honest,” I say aloud, because apparently, I am now a man who narrates his own dressing process. “You’ve put on weight.”

The mirror offers no commentary, but I can almost hear Angela’s voice anyway.

You’re not heavier, Tommy. You’re softer. That happens when you stop running from things.

“That’s not comforting,” I tell the empty room.

I suck in my stomach experimentally.

“That’s also not happening,” I add.

I try on a jacket. Take it off. Try another.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I ask myself. “She already knows what you look like.”

Which is true.

Claire has seen me sitting, standing, thinking, unravelling.

She has seen me cry without drama and argue about pineapple pizza.

Still, this is different; this is dinner; this is… a date.

The word sits awkwardly in my head, as though furniture does not belong in the room.

I glance at the clock. Six forty-five.

“Right,” I say. “Enough.”

I pick the shirt that feels most like me not new, not sloppy, just familiar.

I button it carefully, smoothing the fabric, then stop again.

“What if she doesn’t find you attractive?” I ask the room.

Angela answers immediately, as if she’s been waiting for her cue.

Then she won’t go out with you again. You will survive. You have survived worse than that.

“That’s very pragmatic,” I mutter.

I was a very pragmatic woman; she replies in my head.

I smile despite myself.

“And what if she does?” I ask quietly.

The imagined Angela tilts her head, amused.

Then you stop pretending you’re still married to grief.

I swallow.

“That’s unfair.”

So was dying, she whispered. And yet.

I breathe out slowly, grounding myself.

“All right,” I say. “I’m going.”

I grab my keys, hesitate, then turn back to the mirror.

“Do I look… okay?” I ask.

The man staring back looks older than the one Angela married. He also looks more honest.

“Good enough,” I decide.

 

Claire

 

When Tom knocks on my door at exactly seven, I laugh out loud.

“Of course you’re punctual,” I say as I open it.

He looks up, and for half a second, he freezes.

That half-second is very satisfying.

“You look…” he starts, then stops, clearly recalculating. “Very… red.”

I grin. “That’s a compliment.”

He blinks. “Yes. Yes, it is.”

He’s dressed simply and neatly. He smells faintly of something clean and understated. There is a nervous energy about him that I recognise immediately.

Teenager.

I grab my bag and lock the door.

“Are you ready?” he asks.

“As I’ll ever be,” I reply.

We walk to the car in a companionable silence that keeps threatening to break into nervous chatter.

“So,” he says as he opens my door. “Where are we going?”

“Petite Maison,” I say.

His eyebrows lift. “Fancy.”

“Quiet,” I correct. “Warm.”

He nods, thoughtful. “Good choices.”

We drive.

The silence stretches, then snaps.

“I should say,” Tom blurts, “I don’t normally do this.”

“Dinner?” I tease.

“Dating,” he says.

The word lands between us, fragile and real.

“I don’t either,” I admit.

He glances at me, surprised. “Really?”

“I tend to avoid variables,” I say.

He snorts. “You picked the wrong man for predictability.”

“That,” I say, smiling, “is becoming apparent.”

 

Tom

 

Petite Maison is softly lit, warm, and mercifully quiet.

The table Claire requested is perfect, tucked away, intimate without being isolating.

“This is…” I gesture vaguely. “Lovely.”

Claire smiles, pleased. “I thought so.”

We sit, and the menus arrive.

And suddenly we are two teenagers pretending we know how to do this.

“So,” I say. “Do you come here often?”

She laughs. “You did not just say that.”

“I panicked,” I admit.

She grins. “I do. It’s my favourite when I don’t want to think too hard.”

“That’s high praise,” I say.

Wine is ordered, and the server brings the bread and douses a plate with extra virgin olive oil and Parmesan cheese for us to dunk the bread in.

We both reach for it at the same time and laugh like idiots.

“This is going very well,” I say dryly.

“Impeccably smooth,” she agrees.

We talk. Not about grief, not about readings, not about the past in heavy terms. We talk about food, travel dreams, terrible television, and the strange things people say when they’re nervous.

At one point, I realise I’m relaxed.

Not braced. Not guarding. Just… there.

Claire catches me watching her and raises an eyebrow.

“What?” she asks.

“I keep forgetting you’re not… in the room,” I admit.

She softens. “And I keep forgetting you’re not just… a client.”

We both pause.

Teenagers again.

“I think,” I say carefully, “we’re doing all right.”

Claire smiles. “I think we are too.”

And as the evening unfolds, laughter warming the space between us, I realise something quietly astonishing.

Whatever I planned to say tonight, whatever important thing I thought I needed to declare, can wait.

Because right now, what matters is this: we are here, we chose the room, and neither of us is pretending anymore.

 

 

CHAPTER 12

Kids

 

The drive back is quieter than the drive there. Not awkwardly quiet. Not strained, just full. The silence that hums because it doesn’t need to be filled. Streetlights slide across the windscreen in slow, thoughtful intervals. Claire sits beside me, one arm resting lightly against the door, the other loose in her lap, her body angled just enough in my direction to make me acutely aware of it.

Dinner had been, how do you even catalogue something like that?

Not fireworks, not sweeping declarations, just warmth, with laughter and ease. The strange delight of discovering you don’t have to explain yourself so much.

We talked until the plates were cleared and the server hovered with the gentle insistence of someone who needs the table back but doesn’t want to ruin anything meaningful. Claire had laughed, thanked him, and somehow made it feel like he was the one interrupting something sacred.

She’d been stunning.

That’s the only word for it.

Elegant without trying. Funny without performing. Curious in that way that makes you feel seen rather than examined. And this is the part I realise far too late: she had been dropping hints.

Not subtle ones. Not even moderately subtle ones.

Hints that, in retrospect, could have been picked up by satellite.

She leaned in when she laughed.

Touched my arm when she made a point.

Let pauses stretch just long enough to suggest they were invitations rather than gaps.

She looked at me across the table in that steady, open way that says I am here, and I am not hiding.

And what did I do?

I talked about the freaking council zoning regulations.

At one point, I gave a five-minute explanation of why heritage overlays were both necessary and infuriating.

Angela would have thrown bread at me.

The truth is, I was so busy being careful, so determined not to rush, not to misread, not to cross an invisible line, that I failed to notice the rather obvious sign that Claire was standing on the line waving at me.

Which brings us to the present.

I pull up outside her place and put the car in park.

The engine idles softly, as if it’s waiting for instructions.

This is the moment, I tell myself.

You don’t let a night like this end with a polite thank-you and a wave.

You ask her out again, and you’ll be direct. Be an adult. Be brave. Make it simple, clean, no declarations of undying anything.

But before I can speak, Claire turns to face me fully.

Really face me.

Her eyes are bright, her expression open, and there’s something else there too. Amusement. Impatience. Courage.

She looks straight at me and says, very clearly:

“Well, are you going to kiss me here and now, or is this just a wasted evening?”

My brain short-circuits.

Completely.

All prepared sentences vanish.

All careful structures collapse.

There is a brief, vivid moment where I consider whether I have misunderstood the English language.

“Ah,” I say brilliantly.

Claire raises an eyebrow. “That’s not an answer.”

“I…” I start, then stop.

Then, because apparently my body is smarter than my mouth, I move.

I reach over.

My hands cup her face, warm, solid, real. I feel the curve of her jaw under my palms, the softness of her skin, the tiny intake of breath she makes when she realises, I’m not backing out of this.

I kiss her.

Not rushed, not hesitant.

A soft, long kiss that feels like stepping onto ground you didn’t realise you’d been missing.

Claire’s breath catches.

Her hand comes up, fingers threading into my hair, and for one astonishing second, the world tilts.

Not metaphorically.

Physically.

Like the earth has shifted just enough to remind me it’s alive. When we pull back, neither of us speaks. We just look at each other.

I can hear my heartbeat. I can see the way her lips curve slightly, the way her eyes search my face as if checking that this really just happened.

“Wow,” she exhales.

“Yes,” I agree.

Then, because apparently time has stopped obeying the usual rules, we don’t get out of the car, so I turn the engine off.

We stay, we talk, we laugh softly, like we’re sharing a secret with the night. We hold each other in that awkward, delightful way people do when they’re not sure where hands are meant to go but are enjoying the process of finding out.

We kiss again and again. Slower now. Exploratory. Careful and bold at the same time.

Claire rests her forehead against mine at one point and says, “You know, for an architect, you are spectacularly bad at reading plans.”

I groan. “You were hinting.”

“I was practically sending smoke signals.”

“I thought you were just being nice.”

She laughs. “Tom. I wore the dress.”

“I noticed the dress,” I protest. “I just assumed it was laundry day.”

She snorts, presses a kiss to my cheek, then my jaw, then back to my lips. I feel like I’m twenty again, which is deeply inconvenient and mildly alarming.

Time stretches.

Minutes become not minutes.

At some point, I glance at the clock on the dashboard and blink.

“Claire,” I say carefully.

“Yes?”

“I think we’ve been sitting here for a while.”

She follows my gaze, then laughs. “Define ‘a while.’”

Before I can answer, headlights sweep across the car.

Then they stop, and there’s a knock on the window.

A firm one.

We freeze.

I look out and see a police officer standing there, arms crossed, expression somewhere between stern and amused.

I lower the window.

“Yes, officer?” I say instantly, sounding like a man who has absolutely been up to something.

The officer leans down slightly, peers in at the two of us, rumpled, flushed, clearly far too old for this nonsense, and says: “What are you kids doing in there?”

Claire makes a choking sound that might be a laugh.

“I’m fifty-five,” I blurt. “She’s…”

“Don’t,” Claire warns.

The officer raises an eyebrow. “Sir.”

“Sorry,” I mutter.

He sighs, shaking his head. “Look, I don’t care what you’re doing. But you’ve been parked here for over an hour. Neighbours get twitchy.”

“Of course,” I blurt. “We were just talking.”

“Right,” he says, clearly unconvinced. “Take it inside or take it home.”

“Yes, officer,” Claire says, smiling sweetly.

He gives us one last look, half reprimand, half nostalgia, and walks back to his patrol car.

The moment he’s gone, Claire dissolves into laughter.

“Oh my God,” she says. “Did we just get told off?”

“I think we did,” I say. “I believe we were officially called ‘kids.’”

“I haven’t been called that in decades,” she grinned. “I feel scandalous.”

We get out of the car, still laughing, and I walk her to her door. The night air feels cooler now, grounding.

At her doorstep, the laughter fades into something softer.

Something real.

I clear my throat.

“So,” I say. “About that second date.”

Claire looks at me, eyes warm, unreadable in the best way.

“Yes?”

“I’d very much like one,” I say. “If you would.”

She nods, slow and sure.

“Call me when you get home,” she says. “And we’ll talk.”

I nod. “I will.”

She leans in, kisses me once gentler, promising, then steps back.

“Drive safe,” she adds.

“I will,” I say again because repetition feels necessary when you don’t want something to disappear.

I watch her go inside, then turn and walk back to the car, my heart doing ridiculous things in my chest.

As I drive away, one thought settles in, clear and undeniable:

If this is what being a kid feels like at fifty-five, I am absolutely fine with getting into trouble again.

 

CHAPTER 13

Romancing Over the Phone

 

Claire

 

The door closes behind me with a soft, final click. I don’t move. I just stand there, my back against the door, keys still in my hand, heart doing something reckless and entirely unprofessional in my chest.

Wow!

That’s the first thought.

Then, more emphatically: Double wow. Damn.

I close my eyes and let my head rest against the door.

The house feels different now, not changed, exactly, but charged, like the air remembers something important has happened and hasn’t decided what to do with it yet.

That kiss.

I had expected something sweet.

Tentative.

Careful in that middle-aged, we-both-know-the-rules kind of way.

What I got instead was grounding and heat and a sense of being held without being claimed.

Out of this world.

And Tom, oh, Tom, is not at all what I thought he would be when he first walked into my office with his careful scepticism and architect’s gaze.

He is gentler than I expected.

Stronger too.

A man who doesn’t rush, not because he’s afraid, but because he understands weight.

Most unsettling of all?

Still no misalignments.

No inner warning bell, no tightening in my chest, and no sense of a future fracture whispering, not this.

Nothing, which for me is everything.

I push off the door and laugh softly to myself as I kick off my shoes, the sound too loud in the quiet house. I walk down the hallway with a lightness in my step that feels absurdly teenage.

“You are ridiculous,” I tell myself. “You are grown. You are sensible.”

A sensible woman does not immediately replay the kiss in forensic detail.

I do anyway.

The way his hands framed my face steady, warm, decisive.

The way he didn’t rush it.

The way he kissed was like someone who had been patient for a long time and was finally done pretending patience was enough.

I shiver.

Bedroom. Clothes. Bed.

I move quickly now, shedding the red dress with care, like it deserves respect for the service it provided. I change into something soft, cotton, familiar, and pull my hair back loosely, my fingers still slightly unsteady.

I crawl into bed and pull the covers up, heart still racing, phone already in my hand.

I place it on the pillow beside me.

Then I wait.

I stare at the ceiling, replaying the evening in fragments. His laugh in the car. The way he looked at me across the table at Petite Maison, like he was discovering a room he wanted to stay in. The way he froze for half a second when I challenged him outside my house, the briefest pause before he chose courage.

That pause told me more than any reading ever could.

Minutes pass.

I resist the urge to check the phone every ten seconds. I refuse to be that person.

Still, I smile when the screen lights up.

Incoming call.

Tom.

I answer immediately, then scold myself for it.

“Hi,” I say, aiming for calm and landing somewhere closer to pleased.

“Hi,” he replies, and I can hear the smile in his voice. “I’m home.”

Something about the way he says it, like it matters that he’s telling me, settles me.

“Good,” I say. “Drive, okay?”

“Yes. Quiet. And I did not get pulled over again.”

I laugh. “A pity. I was enjoying our rebellious phase.”

There’s a pause, then he says, softer, “Claire, I had a fantastic time.”

I smile into the darkness. “So did I.”

 

Tom

 

I close the door behind me and lean against it, exhaling as if I’ve just finished running uphill.

My house greets me the way it always does quietly, patiently, as if it hasn’t noticed that something fundamental has shifted inside it.

Then I see the chair.

Angela’s jumper is still there, draped in its familiar way, like a witness who refuses to leave the stand.

I point at it.

“Oh, don’t start,” I say aloud. “You were no help whatsoever tonight.”

Silence.

Which, frankly, tracks.

I walk over and touch the sleeve lightly, not in reverence, not in guilt, just acknowledgment.

“Damn it, Angela,” I say, half amused, half undone. “I think I’m in trouble.”

I picture her response immediately, clear as day.

About time, Tommy.

I laugh a genuine laugh and shake my head.

I had a wonderful time.

Wonderful doesn’t even cover it.

Wonderful is polite.

What I felt tonight was like a reawakening. Like discovering a part of myself I’d assumed had aged out of relevance.

And that kiss.

Oh, man. Oh, man.

The instant our lips met, I melted.

There’s no dignified way to phrase it.

No architectural metaphor captures the way my knees nearly gave out. It wasn’t heat alone it was recognition. My body was saying yes before my brain could interfere.

I move quickly now, fuelled by adrenaline and something dangerously close to joy. I change clothes, wash my face, then head straight to the bedroom, phone already in my hand.

Calling her feels right.

Not texting. Calling.

I sit on the edge of the bed and dial.

She answers immediately.

That alone makes my chest tighten.

“Hi,” she says.

“Hi,” I reply. “I’m home.”

The conversation unfolds easily, like we’ve been doing this for years instead of minutes.

We talk about the drive, about the police officer, and about how ridiculous we both are.

Then I stop pacing and sit back against the headboard, the decision firming in my chest.

“Claire,” I say, and my voice shifts just enough that she notices.

“Yes?”

“I don’t want to wait too long for our second date.”

I hear her breath hitch just slightly.

“That sounds promising,” she says.

“I was thinking,” I continue, “of taking you somewhere special. There’s a restaurant in Picton. Properly fancy. Tucked away. The type of place where no one accidentally overhears you talking about important things.”

She’s quiet for a moment.

“I like the sound of that,” she says finally.

“It’s romantic,” I add, then wince. “I mean not aggressively romantic. Just… thoughtful.”

She laughs softly. “Tom, breathe.”

I do.

“Would you like that?” I ask.

“Yes,” she says without hesitation. “I would.”

Relief spreads through me, warm and steady.

“When?” she asks.

“How about Saturday?” I suggest. “I’ll pick you up. Same time?”

“Seven,” she says. “I’ll expect punctuality.”

“Always,” I promise.

We fall into a comfortable silence then, the kind that isn’t empty but shared. I can picture her in bed, phone to her ear, smiling slightly.

“I should sleep,” she says eventually, “before I replay tonight too much.”

I grin. “Too late.”

She laughs. “Goodnight, Tom.”

“Goodnight, Claire,” I reply.

We hang up.

I place the phone on the bedside table and lie back, staring at the ceiling, heart still humming.

Angela’s presence settles in my mind again, not heavy, not accusing. Just there.

“I’m okay,” I say quietly to the room. “I really am.”

And for the first time in a long time, that doesn’t feel like something I’m trying to convince myself of.

It feels like a fact.

Outside, the night continues on, unremarkable and generous.

Inside, I close my eyes with a smile on my face, already looking forward to Saturday.

Already looking forward to her.

 

 

CHAPTER 14

The Grown-Ups

 

Emma

 

By the time Jack tips an entire glass of water into his lap, and Lily declares she is never eating vegetables again because they are a government conspiracy, I decide calmly that I am one mild inconvenience away from screaming into the pantry.

“Why is it sticky?” Lily asks, holding her hands out like evidence.

“No one touch anything,” I say, which is pointless because Daniel has already touched everything.

Emily, my darling sister, catches my eye across the table, and we share the look.

All mothers know that look that says: I love my children. I would also like to be alone for several hours.

Mark is attempting to negotiate with Jack using a dinosaur as a mediator. Sam is wiping tomato sauce off Daniel’s cheek with the long-suffering patience of a man who has accepted this is his life now.

The house is noisy. Not joyfully loud, but chaotically loud.

Toys all over the place.

Crumbs everywhere.

Someone’s phone was playing a cartoon theme at full volume because apparently, silence is now illegal.

“I just wanted a quiet dinner,” Emily mutters.

I laugh, and it comes out hysterically.

“A quiet dinner,” I repeat. “With children.”

“I remember quiet dinners,” she says wistfully. “In the Before Times.”

Jack chooses that moment to ask loudly, “Mum, why does Pop have a girlfriend now?”

The table freezes.

Sam chokes on his drink. Mark stares intently at his plate.

Emily and I exchange another look.

That one says: Well. Here we are.

“She’s not his girlfriend,” I say carefully.

“But I hear you say he is visiting the mind lady all the time,” Lily adds helpfully.

“Lily, when did you hear that?” Mark asks.

“Last night,” Lily says. “Outside. You were talking about it. Don’t you remember?”

Sam pinches the bridge of his nose. “Of course we did.”

Emily bursts out laughing. Proper laughter. The kind that shakes you because you’ve been holding it in too long.

“Oh my God,” she says. “Dad, dating the mind lady. How funny could that be?”

I wipe my eyes. “I cannot believe we raised him to be that embarrassing.”

“Guys, you know he deserves happiness,” Emily says, softer now.

“I know,” I agree. And I mean it. Truly. The thought of Dad laughing, kissing someone, it makes something warm settle in my chest.

Still.

I glance around the room. In the chaos. At the noise.

“And so do we,” I add.

Emily nods slowly. “We really, really do.”

 

Mark

 

I know that look.

I’ve seen it before, right before Emma says something that changes the logistics of the next fortnight.

She leans back in her chair, surveying the mess like a general planning a strategic retreat.

“We need a night out,” she says.

I look up. “A night out?”

“Yes,” Emily says quickly. “Just adults.”

Sam straightens. “No children?”

“No children,” Emily repeats reverently.

“No stickiness?” I ask.

“None,” Emma says firmly.

We all sit with that image for a moment.

Silence. Peace. Cutlery that stays where it’s meant to.

“I don’t even care where,” Emma adds. “Just somewhere close enough to get home easily and far enough that no one bumps into us.”

Sam grins. “We could hire a babysitter.”

Emma and Emily blink.

Then, in perfect unison: “Yes.”

The word lands like salvation.

 

Sam

 

Once the babysitter plan is locked in, the energy shifts. The women talk about venues. Quiet places. Mood lighting. Chairs that don’t require booster seats.

Mark and I exchange a look.

It’s the look of men who have been married long enough to know when they’re being underestimated.

“We know exactly where to take you,” Mark says.

Emma squints. “You do?”

“Absolutely,” I say, with confidence that may or may not be earned.

“Somewhere special,” Mark adds. “Good food. Atmosphere.”

“Romantic?” Claire asks.

“Yes, and classy,” I correct.

Emma narrows her eyes. “You’re being suspiciously confident.”

“What could go wrong?” Mark says cheerfully.

Historically, this is not a good sentence.

 

Emily

 

I watch them, my husband, and my brother-in-law, standing there with matching expressions of optimism and impending disaster.

Part of me wants to stop them.

The other part, the exhausted, sticky-fingered, noise-addled part, lets them try.

“All right,” I say. “Surprise us.”

Mark beams. Sam claps his hands together.

“Excellent,” Sam says. “You won’t regret it.”

Emma leans in and whispers to me, “We are absolutely going to regret it.”

I grin. “At least we’ll regret it without children present.”

Across the room, Jack argues with Lily about whose turn it is to be loud.

I raise my glass.

“To the babysitters,” I say.

Emma clinks hers against mine. “To adults behaving like adults.”

Mark and Sam join in, smug.

“What could go wrong?” Mark repeats.

I watch the chaos unfold around us, and for the first time all evening, I feel something close to anticipation.

‘Surely, we can manage dinner,’ I think to myself as I take my last sip of wine.

 

 

CHAPTER15

The Picton Collision

 

Tom

 

The problem with romance at fifty-five is not the romance. It’s the logistics. It’s the fact that your wardrobe has been built around practicality, mild invisibility, and the comforting lie that you won’t ever need to impress anyone again.

Saturday arrives like a dare.

I wake up earlier than I should, which is what happens when your brain decides anticipation is a form of cardio. I make coffee, drink it too quickly, and then pace the house as if I’m expecting someone to burst in with a clipboard and announce I’ve failed an inspection.

I’d told Claire that I was taking her to Picton.

Not just Picton.

The Picton Inn.

Extravagantly priced and ridiculously charming.

The sort of place where the wine list has its own postcode and the servers look like they have opinions about your posture.

It wasn’t just a dinner; it was music, dancing, food, and excellent wine. Lots of excellent wine.

In my head, the plan sounded very smooth.

In reality, I stand in front of my wardrobe wearing my third shirt and looking like a man who has mistaken “date night” for “job interview at the Bank of Discomfort.”

Angela’s jumper is still on the chair. It watches me. Quietly smug.

“Well?” I ask it. “What would you advise?”

Silence.

“You’re useless,” I say, then immediately hear her voice in my head, amused.

Pick something that fits, Tommy. You’re not building a cathedral.

“Fair enough.”

I strip off the shirt I’m wearing, try a darker one, then pause and actually look at myself in the mirror.

The man staring back is not hopeless. Older, yes. A bit softer around the middle. But my eyes are brighter than they’ve been in years.

I stopped trying to be twenty-five.

I put on a simple, elegant outfit: dark trousers, a crisp shirt, a jacket that fits properly without pretending I’ve got a personal stylist. Clean shoes. No drama.

I look, hell, like me, cool!

“Right,” I tell the mirror. “That’ll do.”

Then I grab my keys, check my phone, and feel my stomach do a small flip.

Claire: I’m ready. See you soon.

I grin like an idiot.

 

Claire

 

I have worked with intuition long enough to know when it’s trying to tell me something.

Today, it’s telling me to stop being sensible.

Tom said: music, dancing, food, excellent wine, and my brain responded with the enthusiasm of a woman who has spent too many nights in quiet rooms holding other people’s pain.

I want a night that doesn’t ask me to be steady.

I want a night that lets me be dazzling.

So, I go to the mall.

I haven’t done this in ages, not like this.

Not with intention.

Not with that small flutter in my stomach that feels like being nineteen and secretly hoping someone will notice you in the right way.

The dress catches my eye immediately.

Off-the-shoulder satin.

Luxurious silk-like material.

A high split that says, I am not here to hide.

It’s bold without being loud. It’s elegant with a hint of danger.

I hold it up and stare at it.

“This is completely impractical,” I tell myself.

My reflection looks back and says, exactly.

I bought it.

The sales assistant smiles as if she knows something.

I ignore her.

At home, I try it on.

It fits as if it were made for me.

I turn to the side.

The split reveals the legs in a way that makes me feel powerful instead of exposed.

The neckline frames my collarbones. The satin catches the light, and my breasts, well, Tom is going to do a double take.

The thought makes me laugh softly.

“Behave,” I tell myself.

But I don’t put the dress away.

I hang it where I can see it.

Because tonight isn’t a reading. Tonight is a life.

 

Emily and Sam

 

The babysitter arrives at six on the dot, which is a miracle or proof that the universe occasionally takes pity on parents.

Her name is Talia. She looks sixteen, which is always alarming, but she speaks confidently and doesn’t flinch when Jack tries to test her authority with a dramatic collapse on the couch.

“I’m dying,” he declares.

Talia nods. “Cool. Don’t bleed on anything.”

Jack sits up immediately, startled by the competence.

Sam and I exchange a look. We love her.

“Right,” Sam says, already holding the car keys like a man about to escape prison. “Let’s go.”

Emma’s car pulls up outside a few minutes later. Emma is driving, because of course she is. Emma is always driving metaphorically and literally.

Emma looks stunning.

Dress, heels, hair done. The look that says she has remembered she is a woman and not just a human snack dispenser.

She steps out with Mark behind her, equally dressed up, and for a moment, Sam, and I just stare.

“Okay,” I say slowly. “You two look like adults.”

Emma grins. “That’s the point.”

Mark opens the back door and gestures dramatically. “Ladies.”

Sam mutters under his breath, “He’s going to hurt himself.”

We pile in.

“Where are we going again?” I ask, buckling my seatbelt.

Mark and Sam exchange that look again, overconfident, pleased with themselves.

“We know exactly where to take you,” Mark says.

Emma narrows her eyes. “You said that last time. That’s never a good sign.”

Sam smiles. “Trust us.”

“What could go wrong?” Mark adds.

Emma and I say in perfect unison: “Everything.”

 

Emma & Mark

 

The drive is blissfully quiet.

No kids.

No sticky hands.

No negotiations about how many vegetables count as “a bite.”

Just like adults in a car, slightly giddy from freedom.

I glance at Emily and she’s relaxed. Smiling. Sam has his hand resting on her knee. Mark is humming softly, as if he’s delighted with himself.

“This better be good,” I warn.

“It will be,” Mark says too confidently.

We pull into Picton, and I see the sign for The Picton Inn.

My stomach drops.

“Oh no,” I whisper.

“What?” Emily asks.

Emma, I remind myself. Breathe.

“Nothing,” I say, but my brain is already sprinting ahead.

Dad said something about Picton last week. Something about a fancy dinner. Something about music.

Mark looks at me. “What?”

I pull into the car park anyway because it’s too late to abort without looking insane.

We walk in.

The place is beautiful: warm lighting, polished timber, candles on tables, and a quartet playing jazz that’s soft enough to talk over but danceable enough to make you forget you’re an adult with responsibilities.

I feel Emily’s hand tighten around Sam’s arm.

“Emma,” she whispers. “Is that…?”

I follow her gaze.

Centre stage. Near the quartet. A man in a dark jacket is leaning back with a glass of wine.

My father.

And beside him

A woman in an off-the-shoulder satin dress with a high split, laughing as if she belongs in the room.

Claire. The mind lady.

The woman who somehow made my father stop looking like a ghost.

“Oh my God,” I say.

Mark’s eyebrows shoot up. “Is that?”

“Yes,” I hiss.

Sam’s mouth falls open. “No way.”

We are escorted to a table near the back because Mark, smug as ever, apparently booked this place weeks ago for our night out. The irony could power a small city.

“Do we leave?” Sam whispers.

“No,” I say, gripping my menu like a shield. “We can’t leave. That’s suspicious.”

“It’s already suspicious,” Emily mutters.

Mark clears his throat. “We can just be normal.”

“Mark,” I say, deadpan, “nothing about this is normal.”

We order wine, we order food, and we attempt to behave like adults who are not internally screaming.

Across the room, Dad and Claire are laughing.

Dad pours wine, Merlot, by the look of it. He looks happy.

And Claire looks at him like she’s having the time of her life.

My throat tightens unexpectedly.

I hate this and love it at the same time.

 

Tom

 

At our table, the world feels like it’s narrowed down to two people, excellent wine, and the gentle arrogance of jazz.

I ordered the Merlot because it feels like the right choice for a night like this: rich, warm, a little dramatic.

Claire looks incredible.

Not just the dress, though yes, the dress is unfair and should come with a warning label. It’s the way she wears it. Like she’s not asking permission to exist.

I do, in fact, do a double take when I pick her up.

She notices and grins.

“Behave,” she says.

“Not possible,” I reply.

So, we continue to talk.

We drink.

 We laugh.

I tell her a story about a client who insisted on a “floating staircase” and then panicked when he realised gravity was still a thing. She tells me about a woman who came in demanding to know if her ex would return, and when Claire said, “probably not,” the woman asked if she could “redo the reading.”

“People treat you like a vending machine,” I say.

“Sometimes,” Claire agrees. “But tonight, I’m off duty.”

“Good,” I say, raising my glass.

We clink.

After a couple of drinks, the music shifts.

The quartet plays something slower and smoother. Claire’s eyes meet mine, and she tilts her head.

“Dance?” she asks.

My heart does its ridiculous thing again.

“I haven’t danced in years,” I confess.

Claire smiles. “Then you’re overdue.”

We stand, and I offer my hand. She takes it.

We step onto the dance floor.

I’m not terrible. I’m also not good. Mostly, I’m careful, which is what happens when you’re trying not to step on someone you like.

Claire laughs softly. “Relax,” she murmurs. “It’s not a structural assessment.”

“It feels like one,” I mutter.

“Tom,” she says, amused, “you’re holding me as if I might shatter.”

“That’s because you might,” I say before I can stop myself.

Claire’s smile falters just a fraction, then softens into something warmer.

And then we’re moving properly, bodies finding a rhythm, the music carrying us.

I see nothing else.

I don’t see anyone else.

Which is why I don’t notice my daughters and sons-in-law walking in.

 

Emma & Mark

 

We’re halfway through pretending we’re not here when Dad and Claire get up to dance again.

This time, Mark nudges me. “We should dance too.”

I stare at him. “Are you insane?”

“Come on,” he says. “We’re here. Let’s enjoy it.”

Emily looks torn.

Sam, traitor that he is, says, “I actually want to dance.”

I exhale. “Fine. But if we collide with my father, I’m filing for divorce.”

Mark grins. “Deal.”

We get up and step onto the dance floor.

And because the universe loves timing, we drift inevitably toward the centre.

And then Dad turns, Claire turns, and suddenly we are all standing in the same small patch of polished timber like some kind of family ambush.

My father stares at me.

I stare at him.

Claire blinks like she’s just been transported into a different life.

Sam makes a noise that might be a laugh.

Mark, the idiot, says, “Well.”

No one moves and no one speaks.

The quartet finishes the song, and the music stops, leaving us in a spotlight of silence.

And then, because Jack is apparently a prophet now, I hear Lily’s voice in my head:

Pop is seeing the mind lady.

Emily whispers, “Maybe Lily’s a psychic.”

Mark snorts. “At this point, I wouldn’t rule it out.”

Dad clears his throat.

“Emma,” he says.

“Dad,” I reply.

Emily looks at me, then at Dad, then back at me, as if trying to decide whether to disappear through the floor.

No one laughs. Not yet.

The next song starts, but we are stuck in that moment: three couples, three different versions of shock.

Dad’s face goes through several expressions in quick succession: surprise, horror, then something like resignation.

Then he does the one thing I don’t expect.

He reaches down, takes Claire’s hand firmly, publicly, and turns away from us.

He leads her back toward their table.

My chest tightens.

He’s choosing her. Not against us. Not in rebellion. Just choosing.

He pauses at his table, then turns and looks back at Claire.

“I should speak with them,” he says, voice low.

Claire shakes her head immediately.

“No,” she says gentle but firm. “Not you alone. Together.”

Dad hesitates, then nods.

They interlace their fingers.

And then, holding hands like teenagers who don’t care who sees, they walk toward our table.

And the sight of it hits me harder than I expect.

Because my father, who once lived like he was made of grief and duty, is walking across a dance floor with a woman he cares about.

Alive!

Brave!

And apparently determined to face his children head-on.

I swallow, straighten my shoulders, and silently prepare for whatever comes next.

 

 

CHAPTER 16

Across the Table

 

We don’t sit down straight away, and that’s the strange part.

For a moment, Claire and I just stand there beside my daughters’ table, hands still linked, like we’ve arrived at the wrong house for Christmas and are deciding whether to knock or apologise.

Emma looks at me the way she did when she was twelve, and I’d caught her sneaking back in after curfew, guarded, assessing, already preparing an argument she doesn’t quite want to have.

Emily looks torn between laughter and disbelief.

Mark and Sam look like men who have realised simultaneously that this evening has gone wildly off script.

I clear my throat.

“Mind if we sit?” I ask, gesturing to the empty chairs.

Emma blinks. “You want to sit?”

“Yes,” I say. “Unless you’d prefer, we shout across the restaurant like lunatics.”

Sam snorts despite himself.

Claire squeezes my hand once, grounding, steady, then lets go so we can pull out chairs and sit properly.

There’s something symbolic in that small release. We’re not hiding, we’re not clinging, we’re just here.

I look around the table.

Four faces. Familiar. Loved. Suspicious.

“All right,” I say, lifting my glass slightly. “What do you want to know?”

For half a second, no one speaks.

Then Emma inhales.

“Oh,” she says. “So much.”

 

The questions don’t pour in immediately.

They trickle.

Carefully.

Emily starts first, bless her.

“How long?” she asks.

I glance at Claire beside me, then back at my daughter. “How long have we been seeing each other?”

“Yes.”

“Not long,” I answer honestly. “Long enough to matter. Not long enough to pretend we know everything.”

Emma nods slowly. “Okay.”

Mark leans forward. “Did you meet through work?”

Claire answers that one before I can. Her voice is calm, undefensive.

“Yes,” she says. “But that isn’t what this is now.”

Sam tilts his head. “So, you’re not,” he gestures vaguely between us. “doing sessions?”

“No,” Claire replies.

“I don’t read people I’m personally involved with.”

“Good,” Emma mutters.

I shoot her a look. “Emma.”

“I’m allowed one mutter,” she says. “This is a lot.”

She’s right, and she is right, it is.

“So,” Emma says, turning to Claire, “you knew who my father was, and is, before tonight, and you still went out with him tonight?”

Claire smiles gently. “Yes.”

Emma studies her for a moment, clearly trying to decide whether to interrogate or trust.

Then she exhales. “Okay.”

That feels like a minor victory.

I signal to the server. “Another bottle, please. And some more glasses.”

Mark raises his eyebrows. “Planning on settling in?”

“Yes,” I say. “Apparently, we’re doing this properly.”

Wine arrives. Glasses are poured. The tension softens just a fraction.

Emily leans back in her chair. “All right. I’ll ask the awkward one.”

I brace myself.

“Dad,” she says. “Are you okay?”

The table goes quiet.

I don’t answer immediately.

Not because I don’t know, but because the honesty of the question deserves more than a reflex.

“Yes,” I say finally. “I am. Not perfect. Not finished. But okay, in a way, I haven’t been for a long time.”

Emma watches my face closely. “Because of her?”

I glance at Claire beside me.

“Not because of her,” I say carefully. “But with her.”

Claire reaches for her glass, giving me space to answer without interruption.

“And Mum?” Emma asks, softer now.

That one lands heavily.

“I haven’t lost your mother,” I say.

“I never will. This doesn’t replace her. It doesn’t compete with her. It doesn’t even sit in the same category.”

Mark nods slowly. “That makes sense.”

Sam adds, “You’re allowed to still be alive, Tom.”

I blink, surprised.

Emma shoots him a look.

“Don’t get profound with us now.”

He shrugs. “Someone had to.”

Claire has been quiet, listening. Now she speaks.

“I want to be very clear,” she says, her voice steady. “Angela is not erased here. She’s not diminished. I wouldn’t be part of this if that were the case.”

Emma meets her gaze. “You talk about her like she’s… present.”

“She is,” Claire replies. “Just not in the way people fear.”

Something in Emma’s shoulders relaxes.

Then the questions really begin.

“How did you end up here?”

“So, this is not your first date?”

“Have you kissed yet?”

Claire takes over and answers all the questions directly and to the point.

“Dad, did you seriously miss all her hints?”

That one earns me no sympathy.

“I was being respectful,” I protest.

“You were being oblivious,” Emily corrects.

Claire laughs. “It was impressive, actually.”

Wine flows. Laughter follows. The edge dulls.

Mark asks about work. Claire answers thoughtfully, not mystically. Sam asks how long she’s lived in the area. She tells him. Emma asks what she likes about Dad.

Claire doesn’t hesitate.

“He listens,” she says. “Even when he argues.”

Emma smiles despite herself.

“And you,” Claire says, turning to my daughters, “are very protective.”

“That’s our job,” Emma replies.

“I know,” Claire says. “I respect it.”

The conversation stretches, eases, and becomes something warmer than an interrogation.

Stories surface.

Embarrassing childhood anecdotes.

Claire shares one of her own disastrous first date involving a karaoke machine and a man who thought confidence was a substitute for kindness.

We all wince in solidarity.

At some point, I realise we’ve been sitting there for nearly an hour.

The music continues, and the restaurant hums around us, blissfully unaware that a small family recalibration is taking place near the back.

When the questions finally slow, Claire sets her glass down.

She looks at my daughters.

Not challengingly. Not anxiously.

Just openly.

“There’s something I need to ask you,” she says.

The table quiets again.

Emma straightens. “Okay.”

Emily takes a breath.

“Are you okay with your father seeing me?”

No theatrics. No justification.

Just the question.

I hold my breath without meaning to.

Emma looks at Emily. Then at me. Then at Claire.

Emily is the first to speak.

“Yes,” she says simply. “I am.”

Emma exhales slowly. “I am too.”

She pauses, then adds, “As long as you don’t hurt him.”

Claire nods. “That goes both ways.”

Mark lifts his glass. “Then I think that’s settled.”

Sam raises his. “To adults behaving like adults.”

I lift mine last.

“To family,” I say. “Expanding.”

Glasses clink.

And for the first time since Angela died, I feel something settle into place, not because nothing will ever go wrong again, but because we’ve chosen honesty over silence.

Claire’s hand finds mine under the table.

I squeeze it once.

Across from us, my daughters smile.

Not because they understand everything.

But because they don’t have to anymore.

 

 

EPILOGUE

The Room That Opens

 

The night doesn’t end with declarations. It ends with warmth. With laughter lingering a little longer than necessary. With empty glasses pushed aside and chairs scraped back as the quartet packs up, the musicians nod politely as if they’ve just played background music to something quietly important.

When we finally stand to leave, there is no awkwardness left to manage.

Just familiarity.

Emma hugs me first. Properly. Not the careful hug of a daughter checking whether her father might break, but the solid, unguarded hug of someone who knows he won’t.

“Be happy,” she whispers into my shoulder.

“I am,” I reply, surprised at how true it feels.

Emily hugs Claire next. There’s a moment there two women measuring each other, then smiling.

“I think,” my daughter says, “Lily might actually like you more than she likes us.”

Claire laughs. “I’ll try not to let that go to my head.”

Mark and Sam shake my hand, then pull me into quick, awkward hugs because that’s how men handle emotion when they’ve already used up their quota for the evening.

“Don’t make us regret this,” Sam says, half joking, and hands me the restaurant bill, smiles and says, “It is your shout, Tom.”

“No promises,” I reply. “But I’ll do my best,” as I pay both our bills.

Outside, under the soft Picton night sky, the families separate. Emma’s car pulls away first, taillights disappearing down the road, carrying with it my children, who will tell my grandchildren something that may surprise them.

Claire and I walk to my car.

She slips her hand into mine without asking, and I don’t let go.

 

The weeks that follow are not dramatic.

They are better than that.

They are full.

Sunday lunches return, noisier than ever. Lily insists Claire sit beside her because mind ladies need to be supervised. Jack asks whether Claire can tell the future of his football career. Claire tells him only if he eats his vegetables.

Emma watches all of it with a smile she doesn’t hide.

I design again, not restorations but new builds.

Spaces with light, with courtyards and windows placed not just for views, but for warmth.

Houses that assume people will gather, leave, return, and change.

Claire the psychic is now, well, just Claire.

A woman who dances badly in the kitchen. Who loves pistachio ice cream and unapologetically orders pineapple pizza? Who listens without fixing? Who holds my hand in public like she’s not afraid of the world seeing us.

And I stop thinking of my life as something that ended and restarted.

It never ended.

It expanded.

Angela is still here in stories, in habits, in the way I still tap a spoon twice on the edge of a pot without realising it. She is not been replaced. She is not erased.

She is part of the structure.

And now there is more.

More noise. More laughter. More future than I thought I was allowed.

On a quiet afternoon, Claire sits on the couch reading while I sketch at the table. Sunlight falls across the floor exactly where I planned it.

She looks up at me and smiles.

“What are you working on?” she asks.

I look at the page.

A house, yes, but also a life.

“Something new,” I say.

She nods, satisfied.

Outside, children shout. A door slams. Someone laughs.

Inside, the room holds.

And for the first time in a very long time, I know, without needing a reading, that this is not the end.

It’s a new era.

One with space.

One with light.

One we are building together.