Chapter 11

Barely awake, I felt my sister slide out of bed in the early morning. Through half-open eyes I saw cool grey light coming through the windows. It was barely dawn.

“Vi?” I mumbled, reaching for her.

“Everything’s fine,” my sister whispered. I felt the bed shift as she came back to kiss my shoulder. “I’m just going to freshen up before Stephan arrives. Sleep.”

“K.” I was unconscious again in moments.

My need for rest must have been far deeper than I realized: when I woke again the house was silent and empty. Stephan had come and gone, and the grocery list was missing from the kitchen counter. In its place, Violet had left a note in her precise hand:

Gone to pick up supplies. Be back soon! 💕

I smiled and got to making breakfast. I had just finished eating the fresh fruit compote when I heard the rumble of the garage door and the BMW’s engine. I unlocked the inner door to see Violet’s small frame already half-hidden behind the coupe’s open trunk.

“Can I help with anything?”

“This one, please.” She kissed my cheek and passed me a black recycled plastic shopping bag as the garage door slid closed behind us.

“Sorry for not doing this. I feel like I slept through everything this morning.”

“You’ve been doing everything the last few weeks. It’s okay. You deserve some rest.”

“Still.” I swung the bag onto the kitchen counter.

“Adam,” Violet said firmly. “You made the funeral arrangements when I could barely hold it together. Organised the wake and how we’d take this house down. It’s okay to sleep in for a few days. Especially with what we’ve been up to.”

“Mmm,” I slid my arms around Violet’s waist from behind and kissed her neck. She smiled, reaching back with both hands to stroke my thighs.

“Work will lift your conscience,” she said. “It always does for me, anyway.”

“But...” I ground my hips against her.

“Later.” Violet grinned. “You’re the one who’s been a stickler for our schedule here. I don’t want it on your mind when we finally fuck.”

I groaned against her neck with the thought and she giggled. “Right now cleaning this place is the last thing I’m thinking about.”

“As much I like hearing that, I know it’s not true.” She turned in my arms and kissed my chest. “Go take a shower. I’ll unpack here, and we’ll get to work.”

“Okay, okay.”

There was a package of condoms on the nightstand of our bed when I emerged from the shower. Magnum size.

We quickly discovered that trying to work together was impossible. It was like trying to fight the pull of gravity: even if we started at opposite ends of the same room, every tiny, seemingly unconscious decision would inevitably draw us closer together, until we were making out passionately, ready to fall to the wooden floor and rut.

After an hour of getting very little done we agreed to work in adjoining rooms instead. Our words gained echoes as we cleared the walls of the house.

Everything was different. Every motion, every glance through the open doorway between us seemed redolent with meaning now. Everything felt like it suddenly made sense. It was as if we’d been puzzling over encrypted messages from each other our entire lives and had finally uncovered the cipher. I realized just how long Vi and I had been dancing around each other, forever close and yet not touching.

We broke for lunch, and then resumed on the ground floor. Vi’s task was to pack the collection of antique porcelain Chinese vases that my father had kept after the divorce from Vi’s mother; mine was to make the kitchen as minimal as possible, stripping it down to only what we needed for the next two weeks.

I’d barely started the work when I heard a startlingly loud smash behind me. I was back in the lounge in moments.

Vi stood very still, the shattered remnants of one of the vases at her bare feet. “Ooops.” A tiny smile quirked one corner of her mouth.