Grand Marais was already settling into evening when Joseph Hawkings drove through downtown, the last of the daylight lying low between the buildings and turning the windows of the storefronts pale gold.
Most of the shops were still open, but nobody seemed to be in a hurry to get anywhere. A woman in a thick coat carried a paper bag toward a parked pickup, two men stood outside a hardware store talking with their hands buried in their pockets, and a string of warm lights had already come on beneath the awning of a café.
The town moved at the pace of a place that had spent its entire existence learning how to function in the cold.
He found the flower shop two blocks from the main road and parked at the curb.
Inside, the heat smelled faintly of damp coats and cut stems, and he stood in front of the refrigerated display longer than necessary before choosing the first bouquet, then another, checking each bundle twice as though the flowers might somehow tell him whether he'd made the right choice.
One was for Sydney's mother. The other was for someone else, a gesture he wasn't entirely sure would be welcomed, but he'd already driven this far and didn't know how to arrive empty-handed.
He added a box of chocolates for Melanie before paying. The cashier wrapped the flowers in brown paper and handed them over one at a time, and Hawkings carried both bouquets and the chocolates against his chest as he walked back to the car.
For a few seconds he stood beside the driver's door with everything in his arms, looking down at the flowers like they were evidence in a case he hadn't figured out how to argue.
The address took him farther from the center of town. When the GPS announced that he'd arrived, he looked through the windshield at the apartment complex ahead and stopped with both hands still on the wheel.
He'd expected her mother's house. Instead there were three connected buildings, brick darkened by the late-November damp, with rows of windows glowing behind curtains. He checked the address on his phone, then looked at the building again.
Correct.
He sat there another minute.
Then he flipped down the visor mirror.
The man looking back at him had five days of stubble along his jaw, enough to erase the clean line he'd once kept every morning without thinking about it.
His eyes were still sharp, but the skin beneath them had darkened from too many hours awake, and there was something heavier in the way he held his face. He ran one hand through his hair, found the same tired shape he'd been carrying all day, and took a breath.
He opened the center console, took out a breath mint, and put it in his mouth.
The visor clicked shut.
He got out.
He took the stairs.
The first landing came quickly, then the second, then the third, each flight carrying the sound of his shoes upward through the narrow concrete stairwell.
By the fourth, he'd already gone through three versions of what he was going to say, discarded two of them, and started another one before reaching the fifth.
Tell her why you're here. Don't defend yourself. Ask about Melanie first.
On the sixth landing, he wondered what he would accept if Sydney said she didn't want him back. He didn't find an answer before the seventh floor appeared beneath his feet.
The corridor was quiet.
He adjusted the flowers in his arms. He straightened the collar of his charcoal wool coat, checked the front of it with one hand, then looked at the apartment number he'd memorized from his phone. His rehearsal had survived the drive, the town, the stairs, and seven floors of waiting. Standing in front of the door, it suddenly felt like something he'd written for another man.
He knocked.
The seconds afterward were longer than the stairs had been.
He heard movement inside.
The lock turned.
The door opened.
Sydney stood there.
Her brown hair caught the hallway light without looking deliberately styled, loose around her shoulders in the way it did when she was at home and had nowhere she needed to be.
Her brown eyes found his face, then dropped briefly to the flowers in his arms before returning to him, and the freckles across the bridge of her nose and along her cheekbones were exactly where he remembered them.
She looked comfortable in the doorway. Not dressed for company, not arranged for his arrival. Comfortable in her own apartment.
His chest tightened.
Her smile appeared a second later.
It was real.
That was the problem.
There was warmth in it, genuine warmth, but no invitation behind it. He recognized the distinction before he'd consciously finished looking at her. She was glad he was alive. She was glad to see him. She wasn't glad he'd come here.
I wish I couldn't tell.
"I didn't think you'd actually come," she said.
She looked at the flowers again.
"You didn't have to."
"I wanted to see you." His voice came out quieter than he'd rehearsed. "See how you were doing. How Melanie was."
Sydney held his eyes for another second, then stepped aside.
"Come in."
The apartment was warm without being overheated. There were books stacked neatly on a low shelf, a folded blanket over the arm of the couch, framed photographs on the wall, and a small plant near the window that looked like someone actually remembered to water it. Nothing was extravagant. Nothing looked staged.
It looked lived in.
It looked like Sydney.
More importantly, it looked like Sydney lived here.
He noticed that before he noticed anything else.
She glanced at the bouquets still in his hands.
"Are those for Mom?"
He looked down, "Oh."
For the first time since she'd opened the door, embarrassment touched his face. He'd forgotten he was holding them.
He set one bouquet carefully on the kitchen counter and handed the other to her. She carried it to the sink, found a glass jar in one of the cabinets, filled it with water, and trimmed the stems with a pair of kitchen scissors before putting the flowers inside.
"The ones on the counter are for your mother," he said. "The chocolates are for Melanie."
"Okay. I'll make sure they both get them."
He watched her adjust one of the flowers until it sat properly among the others.
"You look good."
She glanced over.
He nodded toward the room.
"You've made this place beautiful."
"Thank you." She said it softly, and the warmth was real again. She didn't look away, but she didn't step closer either.
Then she asked, "Why are you really here?"
Hawkings looked at the flowers in the jar.
His rehearsed answer had been about seeing them. About checking on them. About taking things one day at a time.
None of it survived the question.
"I was hoping you'd come home."
Sydney didn't move.
"You and Melanie," he added.
Her eyebrows drew together.
"Come home so we can get murdered the next time some werewolf mafia you've pissed off decides to escalate?" She didn't raise her voice. She didn't have to.
Hawkings lowered his eyes.
"I've been a total asshole."
Sydney's expression changed slightly.
He kept going.
"I see it. I've been seeing it for a while, and I just... I haven't said it." He swallowed. "Waking up without you is a nightmare. Not hearing Melanie in the morning. Not knowing what she's doing. I hate it."
He looked at her.
"I'll quit."
She stared at him.
"Chief detective. Gone. I'll walk away from it. I don't care." His voice tightened despite the effort he made to keep it level. "I want my family back. I'll do whatever that takes."
Sydney leaned against the counter.
For several seconds she said nothing.
"I'm happy here," she said.
The words were quiet enough that he almost missed them.
"I have a job. Melanie has a new school. She's making friends." Her fingers rested against the edge of the counter. "She's happy."
Hawkings listened.
"It gets lonely sometimes," she admitted.
Something in his face changed.
"But it's better than before."
She said that gently.
That somehow made it worse.
"What happened to temporary?"
Sydney looked at him.
"You look like you live here."
He wasn't accusing her. He wasn't even sure what he was asking. He'd come hoping to find a temporary absence, something still waiting for him to arrive and put back where it belonged. Instead he'd walked into a home.
Sydney's eyes dropped.
She was quiet for a moment.
Then she pushed away from the counter and walked into the bedroom.
Hawkings watched her disappear.
When she returned, she was holding an envelope.
"Since you're here," she said, "I might as well."
His stomach tightened before she even placed it in his hands.
He took the envelope.
The paper inside was heavier than ordinary printer paper. There were several pages, legal language arranged in clean blocks, names and dates and sections that his eyes moved across automatically because he'd spent years reading documents under pressure.
Then his eyes stopped.
One word.
He read it again.
Divorce.
He didn't turn the page.
"You want a divorce?"
The question sounded wrong coming from him, like he'd repeated something he'd heard through a wall and needed someone to confirm he'd heard it correctly.
"It's not what you think." Sydney's shoulders lowered, "This way you can focus on your work."
He looked up. "Sydney."
"If you die..." She stopped for half a second before making herself finish. "If you die, I won't be there to see it. I won't blame myself for not stopping you. Melanie won't lose you from up close."
Hawkings shook his head.
"I told you I'd quit."
"I know."
"Then what does this solve?"
Sydney looked at him for a long time.
"It's more than the job."
He said nothing.
"I needed you."
The words were simple.
"I needed you at night when things were hard. I needed you in the morning when Melanie was sick and I didn't know what to do. I needed you for all the stupid little things that happen every day." Her voice tightened. "The ordinary stuff. The stuff that piles up until that's your life."
Hawkings' fingers tightened around the papers.
"I was doing it alone."
He opened his mouth.
Sydney shook her head. "I was so jealous of that study."
His expression changed.
"The room," she said. "I was jealous of a room because that's where you actually were."
He looked down.
"There was a point where I thought you were having an affair with some bitch at the station."
His head lifted.
"I knew it wasn't true. Eventually." She gave a tiny, humorless breath. "But I thought it. That's how bad it got."
He stood completely still.
She'd said it without anger.
That made it impossible to fight.
He knew how to read people. He'd built a career on it. A fraction of a pause, a change in breathing, a hand closing around a glass too tightly. He could look at someone and tell when they were hiding something.
Now every thing Sydney did told him exactly what he'd done.
"I was protecting you."
"I know."
"I thought if I kept doing it, you'd be safe."
"I know."
He looked at her.
"I'm here now."
The words were true.
They were also nowhere near enough.
Sydney's eyes softened.
"I needed you then."
She paused.
"Then, Joseph."
He couldn't breathe properly.
"As in the past tense."
He looked away.
"I'm not happy," she said. "Not like that. But I'm way less depressed than I was with you."
He closed his eyes.
She didn't say it cruelly.
That was the worst part.
She'd reached the answer honestly.
"Please sign the papers," she said. "Let me be."
"No."
The word came before he could soften it.
Sydney waited.
"I can't."
"Joseph."
"I'll go to therapy. I'll do whatever you want. We can..." He searched for something that didn't sound desperate and failed. "We can't just give up."
"There are legal ways to compel you if you refuse."
He stared at her.
"And i'll use them if I have to."
There was no satisfaction in her face.
He looked back down at the papers, scanning the sections again, his mind moving quickly through clauses and dates and possible amendments.
"This is all wrong."
He knew it wasn't an argument.
He said it anyway.
Then he looked at her.
"Fine. If this is what you want, I'll sign."
Her face didn't change.
"Not here though."
He gathered the papers together.
"I need to read them first. Maybe there are some things we can amend. I need some time."
They both knew what he was asking for.
Neither of them called it what it was.
Sydney nodded once.
"Do what you need to do."
She walked to the door.
She opened it.
"Now please leave."
Hawkings stood.
He moved slowly toward her, his body following instructions his mind hadn't accepted yet. He stopped at the doorway.
"Look, maybe we're rushing this."
Sydney said nothing.
"We could go somewhere. Have dinner. Change the scenery." He tried a small smile that didn't survive. "We could start over with the conversation somewhere that doesn't feel like a courtroom. My treat."
"I have work."
He nodded.
"I have to make dinner and pick Melanie up from school."
"We could pick her up together." Hawkings suggested
Sydney's eyes closed for a second.
When she opened them, there was nothing angry in them.
"Please leave."
He looked at her.
"We were doing fine before you came today," she said. "We'll be fine after."
He nodded.
He couldn't find another answer.
He gave her the message he'd meant to give Melanie. Sydney said she'd tell her.
Then she started to close the door.
Hawkings put his hand against it.
Gently.
Not enough to stop her.
Just enough to make her pause.
"Listen... Bumblebee."
The word stayed between them.
It was a strange little word for a hallway on a Thursday afternoon, but he had carried it longer than either of them had spoken it.
Their first apartment came back to him, the cheap furniture, the kitchen light that flickered when the refrigerator started, Sydney laughing at something he'd said while they were still figuring out what their life together would look like. Before Melanie. Before the cases. Before the study became a room he disappeared into.
Before everything became something that needed protecting.
He looked at Sydney.
"I love you."
His voice barely changed.
"So... So, so much."
Sydney stopped moving.
Her hand remained on the door.
For a moment, she didn't answer.
Her eyes stayed on his, and Hawkings watched the hesitation pass through her face in tiny pieces. Something rose in her expression, disappeared, returned, and disappeared again. A thousand possible answers seemed to exist behind her eyes, every one of them fighting for the space between them.
He waited.
She looked at him.
"Sure."
The word landed softly.
Not cruel.
Not dismissive.
Just small.
She'd thought of everything else to say, and somehow that was what came out.
The door closed.
Hawkings stood in the corridor.
The apartment door was directly in front of him, flat and brown and completely ordinary. A moment ago it had been open, and Sydney had been standing on the other side of it, and now there was only the narrow seam where the door met the frame.
He didn't move.
A small drop of water sat on the floor near his shoe.
He looked up.
The ceiling was dry.
His vision blurred.
For half a second he didn't understand what he was seeing. He blinked, looked down again, and another drop slipped from his face and struck the floor.
He was crying.
He hadn't decided to.
His face had simply started doing it without asking.
Hawkings drew a breath through his nose and held it. His jaw tightened, his shoulders locked, and he stared at the closed door while every part of him worked to force the reaction back down.
He stayed there with the breath trapped in his chest.
The door didn't open but the water.
The water remained on the floor.