Page 116 of Play With Me

There’s a long pause. “It is okay, Jude. It was a difficult…everything was difficult.”

I nod, pinching the bridge of my nose with my thumb and forefinger. “You guys still on track to come back the day after tomorrow?”

“That is what Gerrard says. We are having a good time, and we are being very safe, Jude. Please don’t worry. Please…enjoy your time with Nora. She is being Cap’s mother, Jude.”

“Yeah, okay,” I say, copping out completely. “See you in a couple days, Farrah.”

“Bye, Jude.”

I don’t know if it’s Farrah’s broken English, or the fact that she’s speaking the truth, but I swallow hard, looking over at my best friend as I hang up. I hate how the thought of Nora being more than just my best friend both feels so right, and yet scares the shit out of me too.

CHAPTER28

Nora

After we thank the sisters for the phone, I remember what we came here for in the first place: to ask if they know anything about the baby at the cottage next door.

But they crowd around us, taking our coats and insisting we eat—and Jude comes away from the phone still looking slightly pale—I’m not sure this is the best time.

But what other time do we have?

I’m also increasingly concerned about the weather.

“Jude,” I say as Carolina sits us down at the big round table next to each other and the rest of them fuss around in the kitchen, chattering to each other in German. “I don’t think we have time to stay.”

Jude follows my gaze out the window, to where the sky is darkening fast, and the snow continuing to fall. It’s beginning to gather on the windowsills.

“Oh, you cannot go,” Carolina says. She’s wiping the table next to us with a damp rag. She says something to the woman still sitting in her rocking chair, and the woman responds with a gesture to the hallway.

“Yes, Sister Elke says you must stay here. It is too dangerous on the highway in this weather.”

“We couldn’t impose,” I say.

But Jude’s already nodding. “Thanks, that’d be awesome.”

He sees my raised eyebrows and frowns. “You seriously want to go out in that?”

“No,” I whisper. “But we could have offered to stay at a hotel or something.”

“Oh, there is no hotel here,” Carolina says, clutching the rag. “The closest is Diamant, and that is quite far.”

When I tell her that’s where we’re staying her eyes go wide. Then she leans in. “Is it very beautiful? I’ve always wanted to see it.”

I wonder what kind of life Carolina’s lived. She’s so young and already a sister. She speaks English and is entranced by the glamor of Diamant, but lives in a rural convent on a mountain in the Alps.

“It’s very nice,” Jude says. He seems to have perked up from how he looked on the phone a moment ago. The worry about Cap receding maybe, knowing he’s in good hands. “Though we haven’t seen all that much of it, have we?” Jude asks me. He has the audacity then to give me a wink, and I feel my cheeks blushing furiously.

“Jude!” I squeak.

He laughs. “Sorry. You know how it is. Vacation time.”

Carolina looks confused. Because of course she doesn’t know how it is. She’s a nun. I want to slide down in my chair or at least change the subject, but just then the rest of the nuns come crowding around, bringing plates of steaming food they seem to have thrown together out of nowhere.

We eat our food—they even have wine—while the women pepper us with questions, translated through Carolina.

Where are you from? Where are your parents? What’s America like? Why is your son not here?They’re all very curious, and very clearly without many visitors.

“And how did your wife agree to let your son go on a trip on his own?” Carolina asks a moment after I’ve shoved a forkful of schnitzel in my mouth.

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