Samantha ran her fingers over the leather cover with its engraving of the Copernican model of the solar system. Patty had kept a journal for as long as Samantha had known her, taking time every night to write in it before going to bed. During grad school, she sometimes read what she’d written to Samantha—limericks about annoying professors, thoughts about her work, accounts of the fun they’d had together. Patty had filled at least twenty journals, all of them placed neatly on her bookshelves in the apartment in Chicago.
Samantha sank to the floor, hugged the journal, unable to hold back her tears, a gaping hole in her chest.
“Samantha?”
Samantha gasped, found Thor standing in the doorway. She got to her feet, set the journal aside, wiped her tears away. “Sorry, I—”
“Hey, Come here.” He drew Samantha into his arms, held her. “It’s okay to cry. Patty was a good friend. Losing her hurts.”
Samantha relaxed into his embrace, some part of her desperate for the comfort he offered, his words bringing a fresh rush of tears. And for a time, they stood there, Samantha weeping, her cheek against his chest.
She drew back. “I got your shirt wet.”
He glanced down. “That’s the closest it’s come to being washed in a while.”
She laughed, reached for a tissue, wiped her eyes. “We do have a laundry room, you know. You get to do one load a week while you’re here.”
“I just came to see whether I could help.”
“You already have.” She glanced around them. “You could take down the fairy lights. You can probably reach them without standing on a chair.”
“On it.” He reached up and carefully removed the strands.
“I think I’ll put them with the rest of the Skua stuff.”
“Skua? Aren’t those birds?” The confusion on his face made her smile.
“We have a Skua table. People give stuff away, swap things, and leave things for the next people who arrive. We call it the Skua table because real, live skuas are such scavengers.”
Thor nodded as if he understood, his lips curving in a smile. “That’s clever. But you should keep the lights. You said she made your life brighter. These lights could be a symbol of that. I could put them up for you.”
Samantha stopped where she stood, touched to her core that he’d heard her, that he’d understood. “I … I hadn’t thought of that. Thank you. I like that idea.”
He set the lights aside and began taking down the photos. “What do you want to do with these pictures?”
“We should put one of them in her shrine and send the others to her family.”
A knock at the door.
Lance stuck his head in, his gaze shifting from Samantha to Thor. “You askhimto help but not me?”
She opened her mouth to answer, but Thor cut her off. “She didn’t ask. I came to check on her and volunteered.”
Lance walked in. “What are you doing with Patty’s stuff?”
“Most of it is going home to her family. They’re the rightful owners now. I’ll put some of it out on the Skua table. Do you want to pick something for her shrine?”
“Where’s her journal?” Lance glanced toward the desk. “I want that.”
Samantha reached for it, held it against her chest. “That belongs to her family.”
Lance tried to take it from Samantha. “I want to read what she wrote about me.”
“You can’t do that.” Samantha turned her body away from him, kept the journal beyond his reach. “Her private thoughts are her business, not yours. The fact that she’s gone doesn’t change that.”
“Oh, come on!” Lance reached for it again. “She didn’t keep anything from me.”
“But she didn’t let you read her journal, did she?” She saw the flare of irritation on his face and knew she was right.