‘Yes! All the damn time. You know the best conversations I ever had with Mom were whispered ones behind my bedroom door?’
‘I loved Saturdays at home with Mam,’ Harri put in. ‘She’d be funny and not loud as such, but louder, and we’d watch cartoons and play games. I remember those times being really relaxed, even when I was tiny. Then at night, Dad would be back, grumping around the house, and we’d both button ourselves up again.’
Annie grabbed hold of the idea. ‘And some of us have stayed buttoned up all our lives.’
Harri thought of Jowan calling her a firecracker, but delicate underneath it all. That man noticed everything.
‘And yet you’re the most outgoing person I ever met,’ he said.
‘Only when I’m away from home. When I’m not being scrutinised, embarrassing him. Anyways,’ she sighed, ‘it’s hard to rely on anybody when you can’t trust the one person you should be able to run to when you need them. When you can’t trust them to react the way you need them to, you know?’
Harri heaved a heavy breath and screwed the lid onto the empty bottle. ‘I do know.’
‘Daddies are supposed to adore their little girls,’ Annie added.
‘I’m sure he does. How could he not? He just never figured out a way to show it.’
‘Sure. I think that’s true, but he’s had almost thirty years to figure outsomeway. Well, twenty-five. He kinda liked me up until I got my own opinions.’
‘He likes you now. Helovesyou,’ Harri reassured her. ‘He hates me!’ Glad she laughed, he carried on. ‘Dads are funny things. I always hoped one day mine would be proud of me, or even… vaguely approving. I kind of like being a barista. I’m good at it, and I don’t have any other big plans or ambitions. I don’t want to sell conservatories or anything really. To be honest,’ he thought he could risk saying it, ‘the happiest I’ve ever been is making coffees here while you’re selling books right next door.’
‘Hmm.’ She was nodding now. She seemed to be about to agree, but when she spoke she said instead, ‘What kind of people do you think we’d be if we were the apples of our daddies’ eyes?’
‘I think we’d be pretty much who we are now, don’t you?’ Harri replied.
Annie thought about it, looking away. ‘I know I’d be happier. More daring, maybe?’
Seeing her getting lost in her thoughts again he moved closer, offering her his arm around her shoulder, waiting for her nod before making contact, pulling her into a sideways hug.
‘I cannot imagine what an even more daring Annie Luna would be like! In jail most likely?’
‘See! Daddy’s right to be worried!’ She conceded a smile, and Harri pulled her gently with his arm, rocking them both.
A moment of silence passed between them for the relationships that caused pain even while they loved their fathers.
It felt okay, having talked about it, thought Harri. He rarely told anyone things like that.
Annie was still a little slumped and her body wasn’t glowing the way it could. He withdrew his arm and reached for the basket, tidying the empty wrappers away.
‘I’m glad you ended up in our flat,’ said Annie looking dead at him.
He smiled. ‘Me too.’
Harri didn’t know if it was unconscious or not, but Annie drew her bottom lip between her teeth the tiniest amount, wetting the soft pink there. To stop himself staring he stood.
‘Shall we go see these cacti Minty was on about?’
Stepping into the blast of warm air in the second tall glasshouse, next to the first, felt like walking across the hazy summer airport tarmac in Texas.
‘Thisis what I’ve needed,’ Annie rejoiced, her head back, slipping her coat from her shoulders and down her arms.
‘And we’ve got the place to ourselves too,’ said Harri, taking off his steamed-up glasses and closing the door behind him. ‘Perks of off-season travel.’
This place was more like a garden than a greenhouse. The entire floor was planted out and covered over with grit. Stepping stones guided visitors around the plants in meandering waves. The silvery trunk of a plant labelled ‘bougainvillea’ grew immediately by the doors and its long branches were already in shocking bloom with bright pink papery flowers. This, contrasted with the blue sky beyond the glass, gave Annie the feeling of being transported straight into summer. Even the shaggy geraniums that had sheltered here all winter were a picture of lush summer health with their red, pink and white flower heads lifting up over their strongly scented, cloud-shaped leaves.
Annie fingered the budded branches of a lemon tree in a huge terracotta urn. She couldn’t help thinking of her parents’ garden back home. Heat, red earth, cacti as big as barrels, the occasional glimpse of the shimmying tails of Great Plains skink disappearing into clumps of high grass with dry, rattling seedheads, the aerial orchids hanging down over her mother’s shady swing seat and everything scented with blousy red tea roses, a curious mix of the prairies and old England.
Nothing could erase the way she loved Amarillo, no amount of work disputes and family feuding. Not Deadbeat Dave or any number of awful senators and state officials, or those few book-banning parents. It won’t be so bad going home, she told herself, taking a deep breath of the fragrant air. Then she caught sight of something even more deeply familiar and her heart jumped. ‘Look!’ she called Harri closer. ‘Do you know what this is?’
