Page 98 of The Bookshop By the Loch

I wrapped my arms around myself. “Do you think Mum is in denial?”

“Aye, partly that I think but more desperation. She thinks if she stays positive enough, she might be able to turn the situation around for him.” My grandfather stuffed his hands into his trouser pockets. “Social services are due round to carry out an assessment on the house.”

Grandpa leant over the counter and kissed me on the cheek. “She just keeps repeating what the GP has told her; that your dad will have days where he’s more settled and others when he’ll be more confused. But I tell you, lass, she’ll go down fighting it with Niall, that’s for sure.” He winked at me. “You and your mother have so much in common.”

“Well, Grandpa, I think you’ve been wonderful about everything. I know how you feel about Dad and I don’t blame you.”

“Aye. Well. None of us know what’s around the corner, do we?”

He left to join Mum and Dad, the Saturday morning sunshine glancing off his hair.

I was congratulating myself about how lucky I was to have such an amazing family, when a figure came thundering into the bookshop.

It was as she drew closer, I realised it was Maeve. “Oh, hi there. How are you?”

Celeste’s daughter struggled to contain herself. “Alright thank you, or at least I was until my mother told me this morning that I have a half-sister.” Indignation and shock radiated out of her. “But I don’t need to tell you that, do I? You already know everything!”

“Sorry?”

Maeve scowled at me. “You had such a cosy chat with my mother. Care to enlighten me?”

“Celeste didn’t choose to confide in me first,” I insisted to her furious face. “It was because of Flora having a go at your mother about her being the silver songbird.”

I stopped and bit my tongue. Shit! Had Celeste still not told Maeve about that as well? Don’t tell me I’d just put my size six feet in it?

Maeve eyed me with disbelief. “Oh, don’t worry. She just told me all about her singing too. Well, sixty years late, but still…” She let out a sarcastic laugh. “Is there anything she hasn’t told you?”

“Please don’t be like that, Maeve. Your mum was so upset about Flora and I asked her about it. I wasn’t sure if she’d tell me anything.”

“Well, aren’t you lucky?” she smarted “I’m her daughter. I should’ve been the one she confided in, not the local bookshop manager!”

Then she performed a theatrical slap to her forehead. “Or should I say I’m one of her daughters. How stupid of me.” Maeve’s damp eyes glittered. “So, seeing as you’re such an expert on my family, what would you advise we do now?”

“Pardon?”

Her tone was icy. “About Corinne. My sister who I knew nothing about. Do I open up my ailing mother to possible heartache or do I tell her to go to her grave, not having tried to make contact with her again?”

I prickled with embarrassment. “Maeve, I …”

Maeve’s dark eyes filled with frustrated tears. “I thought we were friends, Lexie. You should’ve told me.”

I remained standing there, staring after her as she dashed out of the shop.

“She didn’t mean it. She’s hurting over her mother.”

I jumped at the sound of Tobias’s rich, deep voice behind me.

He was leaning against the office doorway.

“How long have you been standing there?”

“Long enough to get the gist of what’s been going on.” Tobias creaked the office door closed behind him and strode towards me. “Please try not to get upset. You haven’t done anything wrong. You tried to help.”

I averted my gaze from his alluring emerald one. “Yes. Well, it doesn’t feel like that way. Right now, I feel as though I’ve made one enormous mess of everything.”

Tobias disagreed. “You’ve done everything with the best of intentions and underneath it, Maeve knows that.” He gazed down at me. “She knows Celeste doesn’t have long and she’s lashing out.”

I rubbed an imaginary groove along the edge of the polished counter with one finger. “I feel so conflicted now.”