Sublime

Eventually she begins to disappear into furniture, against walls, her bare ends blending into things like the end of a brushstroke. Perhaps this is the reason they begin to forget that she is there; they cannot find her edges, the parts of her to pull out from the background to identify her by. They walk past her, talk through her, and are surprise

Not one person they met addressed Sarah or asked where he was taking her.

Orbit 6

Sylvie kept thinking she would break away, turn a corner, and walk back to Julia. She hadn’t meant to leave with Kent. She’d spoken to him in front of the apartment building, the sun beating down on them. She’d planned to hand over the news like a bowl of bad apples and then back away.

Pearl had understood the hierarchy: her mother’s real work was her art, and whatever paid the bills existed only to make that art possible.

“You’re her,” she said, looking up, meeting his pale eyes. Not that crazy cartoon blue. Not blue at all, but widening now. A woman laughed, tables away. His hand lowered the tablet, came to rest on the table, and for the first time since the end of the ride back from Pickett’s, she thought she might be about to cry. He swallowed. Blinked. “Really,

‘She was the wife of John Bell, who owned Lowlands until his death in 1889, and we’ve never known anything more about her: it’s as if she’s been cut out of time. We have records of their marriage, but not of her death; we have no portraits of her anywhere, and when the house and contents were sold none of her possessions were listed in the inventor

Jenny had saved the precious grains of sand in an empty Colman’s mustard jar and when she left home and married Simon she had taken the jar with her. Now and then, when she feels herself disappearing into his or Charlotte’s life, a minor character in their stories, she holds the jar to the window and watches the light glinting off the tiny crystals

‘Maybe he was a millionaire,’ Steve says. ‘Did he look flush?’ ‘Not that I noticed. Like I said: nothing special.’ ‘What would a millionaire be doing in a kip like this?’ the old lad demands. ‘Looking for a proper pint,’ the barman says with dignity. ‘If he’d’ve found one, he’d’ve come back.’ ‘Has he been?’ Steve asks. ‘No. Only saw either of them