turned around in her chair and jutted out her chin toward Kira. “Go ahead,” she offered. “Pop me one. Right in the kisser. I deserve it, you know.”
“What on earth are ye goin’ on about now?”
“Punch me. Hit me. Whatever. Just inflict some pain and we’ll both feel loads better.”
Kira looked properly horrified, and Tessa laughed. It was the closest she’d felt to normal in a very long time.
“What’s funny about that?” Kira asked, looking more worried and concerned than since Tessa had shown up on her doorstep a week ago.
“You haven’t changed so much after all. Don’t worry. But you can still hit me if the mood strikes.”
Kira frowned and took up another piece of crunch. “I dinnae know what’s gotten into you, my closest, dearest friend,” she said as she munched, “but if you want me to pretend that I’m no’ aware there’s something deep and dark lurkin’ about in there—which I’m willin’ to do if it’ll help ye heal—then at least try not to act like a loon.”
Tessa’s laughter subsided. Normal time was over. She opened her mouth, shut it again, then sighed. Heavily. “I’m not in the best place at the moment, you’re right about that. But I don’t want to—can’t—talk about it. I … I just needed to be away from some things for a bit.” And connected to other things … like her only family. “I’m certain I’ll work through things on my own.” That was an out and out lie. She was certain of no such thing. No such thing at all. But she didn’t want Kira to worry. More than she already was, anyway.
Tessa stood up and walked over to her friend, tugging her arm free from where she’d wrapped it around her middle. “I wasn’t here for you, when things ended with Thomas,” she said, never more sober and serious. “And I hate that, more than you might ever believe. I’ve been such a lousy friend. But that doesn’t mean I don’t hurt for you, and wish I was a better person, a better friend. I don’t know how you’re really feeling. You seem good, you sound better than good. But I don’t truly know. So, I just want to say, I’m here now, and if you need anything, I’m willing. Whatever it is. Whatever helps.”
“Weaving.”
“What?”
“Weaving. It helps. I think it healed me. Mostly, anyway.” Kira looked up and Tessa saw, for the first time, the toll of what the last eighteen months had taken on her sweet, gentle-natured friend.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
“I am, too.” Kira took a breath, regrouped, and squared her slender shoulders. “I came back here to hide, lick my wounds, feel sorry for myself. But instead, I found the thing I should never have left behind.”
“The baskets?”
Kira nodded. “I thought it was so sentimental and backward, marking me as some kind of uneducated Highlander. Outlander. You remember, when I came to London, how I was so enthralled with everything it had to offer? Big city, big moments, everything that was a world away from”—she stepped back and gestured to the tiny croft that had once been her grandmother’s home, and home to her mother before her, albeit in an even more antiquated form—“this.”
“It’s not a bad thing to dream, to explore,” Tessa said. “To want something different than what you have.”
“I know. Truly, I do. I know I was fortunate to have the life I led in London. Perhaps I had to do that, to better respect where I came from. When I came back here … I didnae intend to stay. I just wanted time away, to reset myself. The weaving …” She looked over to the studio that had been added onto the croft sometime close to a century before. “I couldn’t sleep. At first. It’s so quiet here. I’d forgotten how quiet. It almost drove me mad. But … I couldn’t go back. I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to. So many memories.” She hugged herself again. “Many of them so good. So beautifully, wonderfully good. It was torture, in its purest form. Seeing where we’d lived, where we’d laughed. Where we’d loved. So fully and completely. Me, an idiot, apparently, believing in the fairy tale, because it was all I ever wanted.”
“Kira—”
She held up her hand. “But in the quiet of the night, with too many memories and no’ enough sleep, I started with a basket. Mostly to give my mind a focus, and get it mercifully off the rest.”
“And it helped.” Developing film was much the same for Tessa. For all the photos she took of death and destruction, she’d taken equally as many of beauty, of life. Most of those didn’t make it into the newspapers or the magazines, but on many a long, very long night, bringing them to life had kept her sane. “I understand that, Kira. Maybe more than you know.”
She nodded. “I believe it saved me. No’ at first, perhaps. But when I gave myself fully to it, going back to the roots of where I began—I-I don’t know, Tessa—something came over me. Or into me. Visions of the patterns, the colors, the shapes, and textures. I don’t know where it all comes from, but it fills me up. And letting it out, indulging in it, exploring it, and seeing the result of it … fulfills me. So I’ve stayed, thinking I’ll leave when it feels right.”
“Do you think you will? Leave? Go back to London? Or start over in a new city?”
She shrugged. “I dinnae know. I’m no’ sure it matters so much now, what comes next. Right at the moment, being here is good, enriching, life giving. I’m good. Better than I’ve been, and better than I thought I’d ever be again. So, I’m here. Right now.”
Tessa listened to the words, and heard the soul of the truth in her best friend’s voice. She supposed there would always be a place inside Kira that mourned what was, what might have been—should have been, if you asked Tessa … but Kira very specifically hadn’t. Tessa would still like to look Thomas up. And kick his sorry ass. For starters. But Kira hadn’t expressed that desire either.
In fact, she’d said little to nothing about what had taken place, other than she’d been blissfully happy, planning a bigger home, thinking about starting a family … when Thomas announced their seven-year marriage and almost decade-long relationship was over for him. He’d already leased another flat before making his announcement and had moved out immediately, leaving her nothing to fight for.
Broken-hearted, broken-spirited, and, from what Tessa could tell, even a full year and a half later, still not certain of the why of it, Kira had had no choice but to move on with her life.
And she had. Brilliantly so, if there was truth in what Tessa had overheard the locals saying about Kira’s unique and untraditional new artisan basketry.
She looked into Kira’s eyes and saw the hint of lingering shadows … but mostly she saw hope and light. Maybe that was the best a person could wish for, coming out on the other side of a tragic set of events … hope, and a little light.
Tessa had no doubt that light would grow stronger for Kira. Her friend wasn’t destined for a life lived in shadows. In contrast, it made her wish there was a glimmer of light in her own life, or that she could trust it would be there, at some point. The darkness she was in felt pretty complete at the moment. And she didn’t know if that would ever change.
