Family For Beginners

“We’re friends, Jack. Friends share the things that worry them.” It wasn’t strictly true. She rarely shared what worried her, but this wasn’t about her. Right now there was a little girl hurting the way she had once hurt. “Tell me about Molly.” She tugged him across the grass to the nearest empty bench.

He stretched out his legs. “Molly’s always been a talker. Confident. Outgoing. The problem was getting her to listen, not getting her to speak, but now she rarely speaks in class. Since Becca died, she’s been withdrawn and quiet. The night you visited, I barely recognized her. The old Molly would have been chatting about everything, showing you her toys, demanding that you watch her dance. She loved to dance.”

Flora’s heart ached for her. “Her world has changed, and she hasn’t yet changed with it. But she’ll dance again one day, I’m sure of it.”

“Were you the same?”

“Changed? Of course. Nothing in my life stayed the same.” She didn’t usually talk about it, but if her experience could help Molly in some small way then she was willing to do so. And they were about to break up anyway so there didn’t seem much point in guarding her words or trying to protect herself. “I didn’t only lose my mother, I lost my home and the world I knew. It will take time for Molly to adjust to her new normal. I expect her emotions are all over the place.” And she’d probably made it worse.

“I’ve noticed that occasionally she’ll laugh at something and then she immediately stops and looks horrified. It’s as if she thinks she’s not allowed to have fun anymore.”

Flora understood that. “You feel guilty. Disloyal. And you’re afraid that if you laugh, it might appear that you loved the person less.”

“Can you remember when you started to feel like your old self?”

This conversation was becoming more personal than she’d intended.

“No one stays the same throughout their life. We’re all changed and formed by the things that happen to us and to the people we love. And people carry on, even when they’re wounded.” As, no doubt, she was about to prove yet again.

“Did it get easier?” He shifted on the seat so he could see her face properly. “And don’t sugarcoat it. I genuinely want to know. It’s been a year. I need to figure out what I can do to help Molly.”

Molly. She’d finish the conversation about Molly and then she’d end it.

“If anything the second year was harder than the first for me. Everyone else had moved on. People forgot. But I didn’t. The reminders were constant. Every time there was a parent teacher evening, every time my friends moaned about their parents.” Thinking about it ripped her open. Why was she doing this to herself?

Molly. She was doing it for Molly.

“Did anything

help?”

“A teacher at my school suggested I write down everything I could remember about my mother. That turned out to be comforting.”

“That’s a good idea. I’ll try that.” He stood up and held out his hand. “Let’s walk. What sort of person were you back then? How did you change?”

“I became anxious.” She strolled with him along the path, trying not to think that this might be the last time. “I was wrenched away from everything I knew, and I found it hard to find any comfort or sense of safety in my new life. All I wanted was my mom. I felt very insecure.”

“Makes sense. You’d seen everything disappear. You couldn’t trust in the permanence of anything.”

“Exactly.”

“And your aunt made you feel like an outsider.” His hand tightened on hers. “And yet you handled it, and you’ve grown into this great person—” he stopped walking and pulled her toward him “—and that makes me a little less worried for my girls.”

Flora wasn’t sure she should be a source of inspiration to anyone. She often thought her life was a total mess.

On the other hand she had handled it. And it was true that she had major insecurities, but she was handling those, too. Normally she was guarded, but she’d just told him things she hadn’t told anyone before and was still in one piece.

“How is Izzy doing?”

“She’s really stepped up. I’m proud of her. I worry about her, of course, but I’m assuming a few ups and downs are natural and on the whole she’s coping remarkably well. You saw her the other night—she has it all sorted.”

Flora didn’t think she had anything sorted. “Was she always helpful around the home?”

“No. Typical teenager I suppose. Mostly focused on herself. Becca had a thing about mess. She liked everything to be neat and tidy, and Izzy was never tidy so there were a few explosions about that. But now she’s my superstar. I couldn’t manage without her. And she has so much patience with her sister.” He tugged her out of the path of a mother jogging with a stroller. “Izzy was especially close to her mother, so it’s hard for her, but you’d never know it.”

She’d known.

Flora thought about the tension in those hands as they’d cleaned up ketchup.