Emma looks up from behind the counter when I walk in.
“There you are,” she says, like I’ve only stepped out for coffee.
Not like she sat beside me in a hospital chair through the night. Not like she held my hand when the doctor spoke in careful, neutral sentences about bruising and concussion and observation.
She hands me a pair of secateurs without ceremony and nods toward the roses.
“They’re being dramatic,” she says.
“They always are.”
I step into place beside her. Our shoulders brush briefly as we work, the movement automatic, the rhythm of shared responsibility reasserting itself without effort. She strips leaves while I trim stems, both of us falling back into something we built together long before Phil, before Fellside truly became mine.
She glances at me once.
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
The answer is simple.
True enough.
She studies my face for half a second longer, then nods and turns back to the flowers.
She doesn’t ask anything else.
She doesn’t need to.
The morning unfolds slowly. Customers come and go. Orders are assembled. Life continues in the quiet, stubborn way it always does. By midday, Emma disappears into the back room to deal with invoices, leaving me alone at the counter.
The bell above the door rings.
I look up automatically.
Phil stands in the doorway.
For a moment, I forget how to breathe.
He looks like himself again, and yet he doesn’t. The bruising along his jaw is still dark, the skin mottled purple and blue, the swelling not entirely gone. There is a carefulness in the way he holds himself, a quiet economy ofmovement like he has learned exactly which parts of his body can be trusted.
He hesitates slightly when he sees me.
Not uncertain.
Just aware.
“Hi,” he says.
“Hi.”
He steps inside, letting the door close behind him. His eyes move over my face, searching, like he’s confirming something he hasn’t allowed himself to assume.
“You’re supposed to be resting,” I say.
“I am resting.”
“This isn’t resting.”