It would take me months to understand that was what he’d done.

Chapter 5 — Lottie

Lottie found me on the Thursday.

She let herself in without knocking, a small fierce woman of about my age in a purple coat, and she stopped in the middle of the floor and put her hand flat on the cutting table like she was greeting it.

“You’re keeping it open,” she said.

It was not a question, and it was not quite true, and I started to correct her — to explain the basket, the few weeks, the sensible plan — and she waved all of it away with one hand.

Lottie had been Franny’s closest friend for forty years.