Free Empty Nest by Marty Wingate

the afternoon. At five o’clock, I locked up the TIC, got in my little Fiat 500, and sped off to Haverhill and Michael’s arms.

Chapter 10
    Michael’s flat sat above an estate agent’s office on a road of shops and offices just off the market square in the town. Michael had left his family’s PR agency and moved from Cambridge the year before, and, unsure just how he’d make his way in the world, he’d looked for economy. He called it his garret—no larger than my Pipit Cottage, but at least it was habitable, as my cottage currently was not.
    I pulled up and parked across the road. When I looked up to his window, I saw him peeking out, phone to his ear. He smiled, and I waved. I took a breath and told myself that I would not complain about living at the Hall. I would not spoil our brief time together with stories of how terrible my life of luxury was. As miserable as living at the Hall had become, I wanted us to enjoy ourselves, and so I would not speak a word about the outside world.
    Still on the phone when he answered the door, Michael held up a finger—a signal, I suppose, to say he’d be right with me, as if I were there to buy a loaf of bread. I looked for a counter to wait behind.
    “No, not tomorrow—I’ve no time at all tomorrow,” he said, giving me a wink.
That’s better. My day off.
“Can’t Tuesday,” he continued. “Wednesday at ten. Lunch? Right. Cheers. Bye.”
    He tossed the phone on the sofa and took me in his arms. “There now,” he said, followed by a respectable hello kiss. “How’s life at Hoggin Hall?”
    My resolution crumbled. “Dreadful,” I said.
    “Dreadful?” He frowned. “How is that?”
    I dropped my bag on the floor. “I can’t turn round without Cecil sneering at me and demanding to know my every move at the TIC. I’ve no time off. The new estate agent doesn’t say anything, just stares at me across the dinner table with his arms crossed, daring me to make a mistake. And,” I said, gathering steam, “if I have to hear one more story about the cost of antique Italian marble from Freddy Peacock, I think I’ll go mad.”
    Michael’s eyes cooled to a glacier blue. “You should’ve moved in here with me,” he said.
    “You didn’t ask me,” I replied crossly. My indignation bloomed. It’s true—he hadn’t. When toxic mold turfed me out of my cottage, everyone else had offered me space, and Michael had never said anything.
    “Didn’t ask?” His voice threatened to break, it shot so high. “I didn’t get the chance to ask. You never took a breath between ‘I have to move out of my cottage’ and ‘I’m moving into Hoggin Hall, it really is the best thing for me, I’ll be right on hand for everything, I’m so lucky that Linus offered, because it’s just what I wanted. It’s perfect.’ That’s what you said.
‘Perfect.’
Put me in my place, didn’t you?”
    “Oh…” Those words did sound familiar. In truth, I’m not sure what I would’ve said if he had offered. The thought of living together, even temporarily, terrified me—while at the same time delighted and excited me. I couldn’t sort out which emotion held sway. “I didn’t want you to feel obligated,” I said in a small voice.
    His eyes fired up to a hot blue flame. He took hold of my arms. “Move in with me,” he said, giving me a shake as if to wake me up. He was so earnest, my indignation flew away and I giggled.
    “I mean it,” he said. “Move in with me now, today—don’t go back. We’ll stop by in a day or two and get your things. I want you here—I want us together.”
    I pressed myself against him and kissed him long, long and hard until I thought we were about to be off on another activity, but I pulled back first. “That’s so lovely,” I whispered. “But I can’t.”
    He laughed and shook his head. “Julia, you’re driving me crazy here.” But I knew he meant it in a good way.
    “It’s just that as annoying as it is,” I said, “it really is