And then I kiss him. I kiss Joel Harris, and he kisses me, and it turns out we do fit together perfectly.
Joel pulls away first. The front door creaks on it hinges behind me, and I press my forehead against his chest for a moment. Blackberries, hearts pumping, the wind in our hair. I don’t want to see anyone but Joel.
“Seraphine.” It’s Alex. My father. When I turn, his gaze drops to the floor tiles between us. I feel disconnected when I look at him, and I see a reflection of my bafflement in his own eyes.
Kiara stands just behind him on the doorstep, and she makes an attempt to smile at me. I squeeze Joel’s hand tighter and wait for somebody to speak.
“Is Danny not back?” Kiara asks.
“No,” I say.
“Edwin and Laura are in the garden,” Joel says. “Would you like me to go and get them?”
“No,” Alex says. His clipped tone echoes mine, and we make eye contact for a split second. I almost want to laugh; is this what we have in common? A genetic tendency to snappiness?
Kiara gives Alex a sideways look. I get the impression she’s tempted to contradict him, to insist on saying good-bye to her newly found mother and half brother, but it’s clear that Alex is desperate to get away from us all, and in the end she doesn’t argue. She looks tired.
“Can we ring you?” she asks me. “In a few days, maybe?”
I nod, not trusting my voice again.
Alex makes a brief gesture, flexing his fingers as if under different circumstances he might offer a hug. “I’m sorry, Seraphine,” he says, and then they turn and trudge away over the gravel, and I shove the front door shut and lean against it.
“You’ll be okay,” Joel tells me again, and I smile at him, not because of what he says, but because he’s here, with me.
When they reenter the house, Edwin fusses around Laura, checking she’s taken her painkillers, insisting she accept a sandwich and a flask of tea for her car journey.
“You do know Joel’s taking her home by car, don’t you?” I ask him. “Not horse and wagon.”
Edwin gives me his stern big brother look, and the surge of relief it triggers in me takes my breath away.
“I’ll walk down to Joel’s car with them,” Edwin says. “Check whether Michael needs anything. When I get back, we can go and find Danny.”
I happen to have spotted Danny through the window when I fetched Laura’s handbag from the sitting room; he is lurkingon the patio, no doubt waiting for Laura to leave before he comes back in. I nod at Edwin.
“Sure, okay.”
Joel curves his hand around my elbow and dips his face to mine. “Remember what I said?”
I let my gaze run over his face, absorbing the details. “I’ll be okay?”
“Exactly.” He kisses my cheek.
When he steps back, Laura is watching me. Her lips suggest a trace of amusement, but underneath that is a sadness that makes my heart feel heavy. She has survived being attacked, and she has met her two grown-up children, and they have left her without even saying good-bye. We study each other.
“You remind me of her,” she says eventually. “You’re strong like your mother.”
I stand on the doorstep and watch them until they are out of sight.
Danny makes a cheese sandwich at the kitchen table, scattering crumbs and ignoring the butter-smeared knife when it clatters to the floor. He doesn’t look at me. I open two beers and follow him through to the sitting room, and I sit on the same sofa as him and pass him a bottle.
“Thanks,” he murmurs, and the absence of the word “sis” stretches like an abyss between us.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
He’s still the same person. But he’s not my brother. We share a half brother. Different halves. That’s as close as we can get.
“Kiara’s my sister,” he says eventually.
