Read Chapter 20: AMSTERDAM

Maeve left for Amsterdam in September.

At Dublin Airport, Julian kissed her beside security.

“Two weeks,” he said.

“I know.”

“You have your passport?”

“Insulting.”

“Phone charger?”

“Yes.”

“Ability to communicate distress before purchasing one-way tickets?”

“Developing.”

He smiled.

Maeve felt the old ache of departure, but it no longer meant escape.

The job was exhilarating. A museum reopening near Museumplein, complicated logistics, impossible deadlines, Dutch suppliers who regarded Maeve’s improvisational Irish approach with alarm and eventually respect.

She worked twelve-hour days and loved it.

She also called Julian.

Not every night. Not perfectly. Once she forgot because a projection system failed. Once he missed her call because Lucy had a school concert. Neither incident became evidence of abandonment.

On the second Saturday, Maeve sat alone beside a canal with coffee and realised she missed Bellwether.

Not abstractly.

She missed the badly closing door, the smell of damp paper, the sound of the café grinder through the wall. She missed Lucy’s habit of putting fantasy novels in History “because some histories are fantasy.” She missed Julian occupying the least comfortable chair because he claimed it supported concentration.

She opened the shop accounts remotely.

Revenue was up thirty-eight percent from spring. Still fragile, but improving.

A message arrived from Julian: Roof survived heavy rain. Beckett remains fictional. All systems stable.

Maeve smiled.

She typed: I miss you.

Then watched the words on screen.

No qualifying joke.

No softening.

His reply came: I miss you too. Come home when your work is done.

Home.

Maeve stared across the canal.

She had spent years treating home as a word other people used when they wanted to limit her.

Now it felt less like a boundary than a direction.

When she returned to Dublin, Julian and Lucy met her at arrivals.

Lucy held a sign reading WELCOME BACK MAEVE + DUTY FREE?

Maeve laughed so hard she nearly dropped her suitcase.

Lucy ran forward, then stopped a metre away.

“Can I hug you?”

Maeve’s throat tightened.

Julian had taught her to ask.

Or perhaps Lucy had learned on her own.

“Yes.”

Maeve opened her arms.

The hug was still frightening.

It was also easy.