The Nearest Heart

Marlowe Street in July is a different street than Marlowe Street in March. The quality of the air is different — fuller, slower, with the particular weight of a month that has been building toward itself since May. The bay window of Mags's bookshop has a different display than it had in the spring: summer reading, three titles arranged with Mags's characteristic opinion, a small succulent that has appeared from somewhere and seems to have decided this is where it lives now. The entire street seems to have resigned itself to the heat of this time of year, and the thankfulness for all seasons.

Emmy and Juliet walk the street on a Saturday afternoon with the ease of two people who have been doing it long enough that the walk is a form of breathing. The school holiday has brought families through; the tea shop at the other end has its outdoor chairs occupied; the florist's orange tulips have been replaced by something sunflower-adjacent that has approximately the same energy. The air is warm in the specific July way, the way that rewards being outside rather than simply making demands of it. On this fine day they're wearing the dresses they wore on the October park date, not because they wish to look particularly fancy, but because they are loose fitting and breezy. However the fact they both chose that dress was not lost on them, and happy memories were recalled on the walk over from home. As they near the bookshop, Juliet smiles and pauses.

"Mags is expecting a parcel," Juliet says.

"From you?"

"I ordered something. She let me use the bookshop address." This is not unusual. Juliet has the kind of relationship with the bookshop that makes using its address for deliveries feel like a natural extension of using the building itself. Hartwell-Calloway house is not averse to receiving deliveries, but there are times delivery drivers suffer the same frustrations as Dale Calloway when it comes to parking in the residential area. Half the time anything that looks like a book gets dropped off at Mags's anyway, so Juliet figures she can save the drivers a step. After all, it's in moments like this that she feels she might be able to embody actual altruism.

"I'll wait," Emmy says, content to enjoy the fresh air and avoid Mags' questions. Recently Mags has been going through a bit of a humanistic psychology phase, and Emmy doesn't want to have the same old argument about whether or not self-actualization is attainable. Most days she feels pretty self-actualized, but knows saying this out loud to most other humans would earn her a grumble or grudge.

#

She waits at the bay window.

The display has three books that Emmy recognizes and one she doesn't — a novel with a green spine that she makes a note to ask Mags about, though she knows Mags will have already identified whether Emmy would like it and will tell her when she's ready to tell her. This is how Mags operates: with the patience of someone who has been predicting what people need to read for three decades and has learned not to rush the timing. Mags will even, it is rumored, refuse to sell you a book if she doesn't feel it's right for you or if you're not ready for it. If she finds out you procured the book through some other means, she will guilt you into confessing, and invariably, you will admit that she was probably right. The times she doesn't find out are simply because the person procured the contraband, and couldn't stand reading it long enough for anyone else in Crestfield to find out.

Inside: Juliet waits at the counter, presumably, collecting whatever she ordered. The philosophy section is at the back left, invisible from where Emmy stands.

The street is warm and July and entirely itself. Emmy watches a pigeon conduct a complicated negotiation with a dropped chip near the tea shop. She watches a small child drag their father toward the florist's window display with the urgency of someone who has spotted something extremely significant. She watches the late afternoon light do what late afternoon light does to old stone buildings, which is to make them look like they have been there forever and are not planning to move.

She waits. She seems to wait for a longer than usual time.

#

Inside the bookshop, she will learn later, the following is happening:

Mags's grandnephew is in the philosophy section. Literally, not metaphorically. Mags has spoken of the child on occasion, but this is his first trip to Crestfield.

His name is Dayo. He is nine years old and visiting for two weeks and has the particular physical energy of a child who finds the world genuinely interesting and moves through it accordingly — always slightly forward, slightly tilted toward whatever has caught his attention next. He may grow into the sort of man who, if running a race, lulls the other participants into a false sense of security. He won't be unseemly fast, but he will be amazingly consistent in his forward momentum. He has fixed his attention on the philosophy section's spines, and is moving his finger along them slowly, reading each title with an expression of assessment.

Juliet, collecting her parcel from the counter, passes the philosophy section on her way back through. It's habit, in the manner of visiting an old friend or a safe space.

She does not walk past.

She does not perform any particular reaction. She simply stops, because there is a child moving a finger along the spines of the books she knows best in this entire building, and the child's expression suggests he is looking for something specific, and Juliet is constitutionally incapable of not engaging with a genuine search.

"What are you looking for?" she says, softening her voice slightly as one does when speaking to children, but not as severely as most would.

Dayo looks up. He is not startled — he is the kind of child who expects to be spoken to. "The best word," he says.

Juliet considers this. "On the spines?"

"There's a rule," he says, with the authority of someone explaining a system they've been developing for several minutes. "The best word on each shelf. You have to find it before you move to the next shelf."

Juliet looks at the shelf. The philosophy section. Phenomenology. Ontology. Metaphysics. Epistemology. Aporia. She understands the appeal immediately.

"What's your current candidate?" she asks, with the same ease that others might ask a nine-year-old about their favorite pop star or influencer.

He points, without hesitation, to a spine with the word Aporia on it.

"Good choice," Juliet says. "Do you know what it means?"

"No," Dayo says. "That's why it wins. The ones you don't know the meaning of are better."

Juliet is quiet for a moment with the quality of someone who has been given a philosophical argument they were not expecting and finds it has more structural integrity than anticipated. Is the unknown superior to the known simply because it has the unknown quality? Is this always true? A question for deeper consideration later. Juliet also ponders for a second whether she should deprive the child of this unknown experience by ruining it with knowledge. She decides he'll learn sooner or later, might as well be now.

"Aporia means a place of being stuck," she says. "A puzzle with no obvious way through. The ancient Greeks used it to describe the moment in an argument where you realize you don't know something you thought you knew."

Dayo turns this over. "Does the word still win if you know it now?"

"The rule is yours," Juliet says. "You decide."

He thinks about this with the full seriousness of someone whose rule system is genuinely important to him. Then: "It still wins. Knowing a word doesn't make it worse."

"No," Juliet agrees. "It doesn't."

"I'm Dayo," the child shares, holding it back as if to prevent Juliet from having the power of his name until she was ready.

"I'm Juliet. It's very nice to meet you, Dayo," Juliet replies. For the briefest of moments, she almost introduced herself as Julian. Where did that come from?

"My aunt has told me about you and your wife," Dayo replies, testing the waters.

"Yes, my wife Emmy is waiting outside for me. She's probably wondering where I've gotten to."

"Well, if she knew me, she would understand," Dayo replies.

"I'm sure she would."

From the counter, Mags has watched this entire exchange without comment and without expression. She watches it the way she watches most things: with complete attention and no apparent intention to intervene.

#

Emmy, outside the bay window, becomes aware that more time has passed than a parcel collection would require. She does not go in. She trusts nothing nefarious is afoot. In the past whenever Juliet has been longer than expected, there was always a good reason. She watches the street and the pigeon and the late afternoon light and waits a bit more.

When Juliet comes out, she has the parcel and the specific quality that Emmy has learned to read: not quite the working-quiet and not quite the after-something-happened quality, but something between the two. Something filed.

"What took you?" Emmy asks.

"Mags's grandnephew," Juliet says. "He's visiting. Dayo."

"Mags has a grandnephew?"

"Apparently. She mentioned him a few times over the past years, but probably not when you've been in the store." Juliet falls into step beside her. "He was in the philosophy section. He has a system."

Emmy waits.

Juliet explains the system: the spines, the best word on each shelf, the rule that unknown words win. She explains it accurately, and with appropriate precision — this is how Juliet tells stories, with all the relevant information in the correct order. She describes the aporia exchange. She describes Dayo's final ruling. Emmy realizes that it's quite possible Mags selectively only mentioned Dayo to Juliet, for obvious reasons of shared interest. Juliet continues on about how perceptive children can be when they open their minds to things. How rules can become not oppressive but expressive.

Emmy listens. And she also listens to the listening, which is a habit she has developed: not just receiving what is said but attending to what isn't. Juliet's account is accurate and complete and — in the specific register of someone who has had a small nice interaction and is reporting it — entirely closed.

What the account does not contain: any observation about how it felt. What Juliet does not say is anything about whether the exchange was easy or difficult or surprising or ordinary. She reports the facts and the content, and she stops there, and the stopping is as legible to Emmy as everything that came before it.

Emmy files this, alongside Juliet's face when she came through the door.

"He sounds specific," Emmy says.

"Very," Juliet says, and there is something in the word — a faint warmth, very precisely controlled — and then they are past the florist and heading home and the conversation moves to other things.

#

They are nearly at the end of Marlowe Street when Mags appears in the bookshop doorway behind them with the unhurried quality of someone who has timed something.

"Emmy," she calls. "A word."

Emmy and Juliet exchange a look — the look that means this is going to be something — and turn back. Emmy secretly hopes the names Maslow or Rogers don't come up. Instead it's a different name entirely unexpected.

Mags is holding a mug of tea and the expression of someone who has decided to say a thing and is choosing the method.

"Fiona Marsh," she says. "She had her baby in May. She's looking for someone she can trust, now and again, to watch Harriet."

Emmy blinks. "And you—"

"I gave her your number," Mags says. "Both of you." She drinks her tea.

Emmy looks at Juliet. Juliet is looking at Mags with the expression of someone waiting for the part of the explanation that makes this choice logical.

"Mags," Emmy says, carefully, "we don't — I mean, we've never—" She pauses. "Why us?"

Mags considers this question with what appears to be genuine patience. "You're trustworthy," she says. "Fiona needs trustworthy."

"There are lots of trustworthy people," Emmy says. "You know lots of trustworthy people."

"Mm," Mags says.

This is not, technically, an answer.

"I'll let Fiona know you'll expect her call," Mags says, and returns to the bookshop, because the conversation is apparently complete. Emmy and Juliet are aware that there was no consent given on their part, but like many things when it comes to Mags, consent was implied in the moment you accepted her into your life.

Emmy and Juliet stand on Marlowe Street in the July warmth and look at the closed door of the bookshop and then at each other.

"She had a reason," Juliet says.

"She always has a reason," Emmy says. "She just doesn't feel obligated to share it."

They consider this for a moment.

"It will be fine," Juliet says. She sounds, Emmy thinks, slightly more certain about this than the available evidence warrants — and also, possibly, not entirely surprised. She picks up the parcel and heads home.

Emmy follows, and the summer evening closes warmly behind them. Two trustworthy women, comfortable enough in their tall lives to potentially be trusted in guarding smaller ones.

* * *