AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Can I stay on your lap?”
“Sure, although I might eat your burger by accident as well as my own. As long as you’re okay with that.” He was rewarded with a small laugh from his younger daughter.
Izzy was frantically rubbing the table even though the ketchup was long gone. Her cheeks were flushed and she kept blinking. Flora wanted to reach out and take that tense hand in hers, but she didn’t dare. Instead she glanced at Jack to see if he’d noticed the reaction of his elder daughter, but his focus was on the younger.
Flora wanted to disappear. This was all her fault.
“I’m sorry I said that. I didn’t—it was thoughtless.”
Molly spoke from the safety of Jack’s arms. “When your mommy died did you live with your daddy, like we do?”
Flora’s breathing was shallow. She just wanted the conversation to stop, but she was the one who had started it.
“I moved in with my aunt. She was my only family. I lived with her until I moved into a place of my own. She died last year.”
Izzy put her burger down. “You have no family? No one at all?”
Jack frowned. “Izzy—”
“I have lots of good friends,” Flora said, “and friends can be like family.” Except they weren’t. None of them seemed to fill that big, empty gap inside her. Her aunt hadn’t filled it, either. In some ways her aunt was the one who had made Flora aware of the big, empty gap. She’d done her duty and taken in a child, even though she’d never wanted children. Flora was constantly aware of her sacrifice. Guilt had shadowed her until the day she’d finally moved out.
“Like family,” Izzy said. “But not actually family.”
“Actual family have the same blood,” Molly said helpfully. “They’re related.”
Flora managed a smile of assent and met Izzy’s sharp gaze.
The girl said nothing more, but the message was clear.
Maybe Flora didn’t have a family of her own, but there was no way she was moving in on this one.
4
Izzy
Izzy was sprawled on Charlie’s bed eating popcorn while her friends dressed for the party. Her dad was at home with Molly and this was supposedly her night to do her own thing and be a teenager. How? She felt about a hundred years old.
She joined in conversation about clothes and boys, but she wasn’t thinking of the party. She was thinking about her dad and Flora.
Flora.
Had they seen each other again? How serious was it? She’d spent so long studying the two of them she’d almost burned the burgers. She’d imagined them sneaking away from work to be together. What did they do when they met at lunchtime? Were they sleeping together? Where? She was pretty sure they hadn’t used the house, but there was always Flora’s apartment.
She imagined them curled up naked on a large bed, surrounded by fresh flowers.
Were they in love? What happened if they were in love?
Suddenly it was hard to breathe. There was no air in the room.
“Izz? Are you even listening—” Avery thrust a bottle of nail polish under her nose. “This color?”
“Looks great.” What if they decided to get married? Would her dad discuss it, or just announce it, like he’d announced that she was coming to dinner? She hadn’t been given a choice. She hadn’t been given a choice in any of the things that had happened to her lately.
Her life had been shattered. She still hadn’t stuck together the pieces, and now it seemed the shape might change again.
Her friends collapsed with laughter over something Izzy had missed and she forced a smile, trying to join in. Did she used to find hair and nails and what she wore important? She couldn’t even remember.
Drenched in panic, she tried to focus on her friends.
