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“Seriously? That’s bad.”
“It wasn’t the best time, but you do what you have to do.”
“Yeah, you do.”
They sat close, shoulder to shoulder.
“I don’t blame my aunt. It was really tough on her having me. She was a single woman with a job she loved and she ended up with a child she never asked for.”
“But that wasn’t your fault. It’s not like you asked for it to happen.”
“No. Lots of the tough things that happen in life aren’t anyone’s fault. In the end you just have to handle it best you can. You know all about that. Molly’s lucky that she has you to change her sheets and hug her. She’s so happy and well-adjusted, and that’s down to you.”
“She yelled at me this morning.”
“And she has the confidence to yell because she knows how much you love her. The fact that you love her makes her feel secure. And it’s because she knows you love her that she is happy to be around me. If she didn’t feel secure, she’d be clinging to you.”
“Do you think so?”
“I know it.”
Izzy looped her arms round her legs. “Maybe. She clung at the beginning. I actually liked it. Is that pathetic?”
That honest admission brought an ache to Flora’s chest. “No. It’s human to want to be loved, but you are loved.”
Izzy scrambled to her feet and paced to the edge of the water.
Flora wondered if there was something else going on here.
“Izzy?”
Izzy rubbed her hands over her arms. “He’s pushing me to go to college. He wants me to leave.”
“Because he wants the best for you, and sees college as the best. He doesn’t want to hold you back. But I can see how the things he said could be misinterpreted.”
“Can you?” Izzy turned her head. “Really?”
“Yes.” If Jack had been there at that moment, Flora would have pushed him in the lake. “Believe it or not he is thinking of you. He is so aware of everything you’ve sacrificed this year to keep things going
at home. You hardly see your friends. You’ve cooked and cleaned and cared for your sister. He wants you to have a life of your own.”
“I just thought—” Izzy shifted her gaze back to the lake and stared into the distance “—that he’d had enough of me. He was basically saying that the family would manage just fine without me in it.”
Flora scrambled to her feet, too. “How can you think that, or say that? You’re his daughter. He loves you so much. Nothing that happens is ever going to change that.” She reached out but was shrugged away.
“Are you hungry? I’ve got food in my backpack. I’ll fetch it.”
She sprinted off so fast, Flora was left wondering if she’d said the wrong thing.
She seemed to constantly say the wrong thing. Family life should come with a manual, in the meantime she did what she could to figure it out.
Jack wasn’t that great at communicating with Izzy that was true, and he could definitely be accused of being clumsy, but she’d never seen anything that might lead Izzy to think he didn’t love her.
How had that thought formed in Izzy’s head? She was sure Jack didn’t have the first clue.
Izzy was back a moment later with a bulging backpack. “I raided Aunt Clare’s fridge at breakfast. I’ve got cheese. Bread. Tomatoes. Apples.”
Flora was so full of lake water she didn’t think there was room for food, but eating was a bonding experience so she was determined to force something down. “I thought you’d come here on impulse.”
