Mia, Élé, and Charlotte have been up for moving to the United Kingdom since long before I went to Sorrowsong. Josie and Evie, I’m not so sure on. It was Fleur I was most worried about convincing, but she’s completely uninterested, scrolling mindlessly on her phone.
“Fleur, please join us,” Mom says softly.
She scowls back at her. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“Yes, fine, Alex. It all looks fine.” She shrugs. “I’ll be eighteen in less than a year, and then I can move wherever I like. This doesn’t really affect me.”
I deflate against the shelves. I want to mend the jagged edges of my relationship with Fleur. I want her genuine opinion. All six of these girls are children. All six of themhaveto come before Ophelia. They deserve that much. If any one of them desperately wants to stay, we’ll stay.
“Of course it affects you, Fleur.”
“You literally didn’t care about a single one of my opinions for all of last year, Alex.”
I shut my eyes for a second, letting out a long exhale. “Well, I’m trying to put things right.”
“Go back to the yard!” says Éle, and I flick back to the brochure of the eight-bedroom country house a few miles out of Edinburgh.
This feels ridiculous, but my mother encouraged me to at least try.
Charlotte nods approvingly at the large yard and paddock. “We could get chickens.”
Mom leans over to wipe some ice cream off her bottom lip. “Scotland wouldn’t be forever. It’d just be for a few years.Thenwe’d settle down forever. Somewhere else.”
“I hate this house,” Mia says, waving her hand around our New York living room. There are a few grumbles of agreement. When I see the foyer, I see my mother curled in a ball at the bottom of the stairs, convinced the staff are out to get her. The office makes me taste the metallic tang of blood, the harsh bite of my father’s fist when he couldn’t punch the economy, so I was the next best thing.
A small smile sneaks across Evie’s face, that tiny little sliver of impulsiveness beneath the reserved personality that couldn’t be more different to her twin’s. “I’m all for it.”
My next exhale comes out as a small laugh of disbelief. “Really?”
“Why not? It sounds fun. Everyone at school looks at Mia and me like we’re a charity case, so … it’s not like I’d miss it. And Scotland sounds cool. And in two years, we’d go to college anyway … so … yeah. I’m in.”
My mother voices her agreement, and then three more follow.
Fleur just shrugs. Josie looks the most hesitant of all. “So … what about if we want to go to France on vacation?”
“We can still go. It’s even closer from there.”
“And … pizza?”
“Plenty of pizza over there, too. Maybe not as good as New York pizza, but still good. How about we let the others get to bed and discuss it over some cereal?”
She slides off the sofa, slipping her hand into mine. Mia gives me a wink, a huge smile on her face.
My mom is folding hand towels in the pantry when I go in for a fresh box of cereal, Josie is sitting at the island in the kitchen. “I love that house, Alex.”
“Me too.”
“I’ll talk to Fleur.”
I pick up the cereal box from the pantry and start heading back to the other room, but some invisible hand stops me in the doorway. A question burns a hole in my mind, has been for weeks. I’ve been waiting for my mom’s mood to steady out a little, and here we are. “Mom, can I ask you something?”
“Of course. Always.”
“Carmichael told me that it was you who asked him to convince the board not to let me take Green over.”
Her hands freeze as they fold a dishcloth. “Did he also tell you that I asked him never to tell you that?”
