show up to find those hopes well and truly dashed.
Of course it’d ended up being more complicated than all that, since Will had either changed his mind or misrepresented what he’d meant by “dumpster.” What had actually shown up, in the end, was a charity service and a locally owned waste-and-recycling company, and according to Emily—truly, the ideal watchwoman, homebody that she was—the charity service had taken the lion’s share. That had definitely put a damper on Nora’s petty satisfaction over making things complicated, but also Emily and Mrs. Salas had both cried over seeing Donny’s recliner being taken away, and Marian had gone glumly, unusually quiet, so in general she still had a whole lot of anger to spare.
Since not-really-a-dumpster day, Nora’s efforts had been mostly email-based, and she was working on an idea that she thought was somewhere between poetry night and Deepa’s dead-fish plot. So far, doing the outreach had meant some disruption to her daily schedule, and she was feeling more than a little guilty about how distracted she’d been during the hours she was supposed to be working on the continuing-to-be-a-nightmare eco-influencer site. But every once in a while, passing by a window or heading out to run an errand for herself or one of her neighbors, she’d get a glimpse of Will Sterling’s car. He was here and he was taking apart Donny’s apartment, and that meant she was running out of time.
It also meant, she thought, that the last few days had been an exercise in mutual avoidance.
From her cramped desk space, she resisted the urge to stand, to peer out the front window to look for some sign of him. The fact that she even had such an urge was the whole problem, frankly. It seemed like every time she saw Will Sterling, she forgot herself. Not for the first time since poetry night, her stomach fluttered with the memory of their conversation downstairs—how he watched her, how he listened to her.
How he turned away from her, when she got too close.
They weren’t all that with me when they were alive.
He hadn’t meant to say it; that much had been clear in the seconds after she’d turned to face him. And it wasn’t only that he’d bolted, with his sloppy dumpster-based exit strategy. It was the way he’d looked at her before he’d gone—some combination of anger and betrayal and confusion. Like she’d tricked him somehow, when he’d been the one to follow her in the first place.
The only comfort in that, she figured, was that at least he seemed to forget himself, too, every time they talked. When they were in each other’s orbit, nothing ever seemed to go to plan. After all, she hadn’t meant to say anything to him about Nonna, or about Mary Oliver, or about how she’d souped up poetry night for him. But one look from Will—one simple, soft use of her name—and it’d been the golden hour all over again.
That feeling that she could’ve talked and talked.
And that she could’ve listened and listened.
All she’d wanted, in that brief, loaded moment of silence after he’d said it, was to stay with him, to keep the conversation going. There was no comparing their situations, of course—Nora’s parents were alive and well, probably right now covered head to toe in dust at some faraway dig site without a reliable cell signal—but still, Nora couldn’t help it. She’d wanted to know if Will’s parents hadn’t been with him in the same ways Nora’s parents hadn’t been with her.
A chime from her computer snapped her attention back to her email screen, where an unread message sat waiting, a name she’d been watching for. A confirmation, she was sure of it, and she should’ve felt excitement, or relief. But so quick on the heels of her thoughts about Will and his past and what they might have in common, she hesitated to open it.
Forgetting yourself, she thought, frustrated.
Still, instead of clicking, she stood from her desk to stretch, closing her eyes to resist the persistent window-watching instinct. What she needed to do was focus, to get right in her head before she clicked on that email and proceeded with her new, not-seeing Will Sterling plan. The other night had been a mistake, trying to . . . bond with him, in some way. She needed to keep her mind on the bonds that mattered; she needed to—
Answer the door.
Nothing about that knock that rattled through the apartment indicated that it was