“Oh, no,” Izzy says, slowing as she approaches the chairs.
This is not the reaction I had expected to the spread I’ve set up on the table. We have moqueca, rice, feij?o tropeiro, and farofa, of course—there are few meals my mother will serve without farofa. It is a beautiful selection of some of my favourite Brazilian foods. As much as Arjun frustrates me, he is an exceptional cook, and he listened to the advice I passed on from my mother when he was preparing all the dishes. They don’t smell exactly like they do at home, but they’re the closest thing I’ve had since coming to the UK, and my mouth is already watering.
“Fish,” Izzy says grimly. Her gaze shifts slowly to me. “Well played.”
Merda.
She looks slightly green. Did I know Izzy doesn’t like fish? I panic, sifting back through all the times we’ve raced through a quick plate of food together in the middle of a hectic day.
“God, the smell . . .” she says, covering her nose with her sleeve. “Do I have to eat it?”
I sit down, swallowing my disappointment. “No,” I say. I hear the sharpness in my voice and hold still for a moment. It’s not Izzy’s fault I’ve made her a lunch she doesn’t like. I didn’t ask her if she liked fish stew. Don’t snap, I tell myself. You’re better than this. “But it might surprise you.”
It doesn’t surprise her. I watch her try to swallow down the moqueca and immediately pour her a fresh glass of water, which she downs in one.
“There,” she says, wiping her mouth. “I tried it. Can I eat this sausage and bean thing now? Oh my God,” she says, already taking a mouthful. “Now, that is delicious.”
Well. That’s something.
My phone rings just as we’re finishing eating. Ana.
I glance at Izzy, who is scraping up the last of her farofa, carefully avoiding the tiny amount of fish stew still sitting untouched on her plate. Is this a good idea? The phone is ringing out—I need to decide now.
“Lucas! It looks like you’re eating good food for once!” Ana says in Portuguese when she answers.
Izzy’s eyes go wide as she realises what’s happening. “Shall I . . .” she says, gesturing to the door.
A twinge of nerves moves through me as I turn the screen to bring her into shot.
“Oh, hello, who’s this?” Ana says, eyes turning as wide as Izzy’s.
The mention of another person on-screen brings my mother to the phone at remarkable speed.
“Hi!” Ana says in English. “You must be Izzy!”
I wonder why I’m doing this. The only answer I can dredge up is that I want Ana and my mother to meet Izzy. And I want Izzy to realise that my family are good, kind people. Maybe that will make her see me differently.
“Yeah!” Izzy says, sitting up a bit straighter. “Hi. Nice to meet you.”
“We’ve heard so much about you,” my mother says, and Ana rolls her eyes beside her. “I’m Teresa, Lucas’s mother. This is Ana.”
“Tell us everything, Izzy,” Ana says. “What is Lucas like when he’s at work? Do all the guests complain because he is so grumpy?”
Izzy laughs. I give thanks for my sister, who can be relied upon to smooth over the trickiest moments. Still looking after her awkward little brother even from five thousand miles away.
“No. They mostly love him, actually. It’s me who complains,” Izzy says.
Ana smiles at that. “I bet the kids love him. Kids always love Lucas.” She pulls a face, pretending to be me. “?‘Hello, small person, how are you today? Shall we discuss politics?’ It’s like he turns into Uncle Ant?nio.”
I flinch. Ana clocks it.
“Sorry,” she says. “That was a stupid joke. You’re nothing like him, Lucas.”
“This Izzy is very pretty,” my mother says to Ana in Portuguese, moving the conversation on. The way Izzy’s cheeks redden makes it obvious that it was a fairly easy phrase to translate.
“How are you both?” Izzy says, smiling tentatively and glancing sideways at me. “Are you looking forward to Christmas?”
They both answer at once, in a mix of English and Portuguese, just as Bruno starts crying somewhere very close to the phone. Izzy looks like she is both fascinated and overwhelmed.
“Yes,” I summarise. “They are. And they’re fine. And they miss me.”
“Nobody said that,” Ana says, just as my mother says, “I miss you so much!”
I smile as I clock Izzy recognising the word saudade in there.
“That fish stew looks dry,” my mother adds in Portuguese, peering at the screen. “Did you make that, Lucas?”
“I should go,” I tell them, keeping to English so Izzy doesn’t feel excluded. “But I’m glad you caught us.”
“It does look dry,” my sister says, scooping Bruno up in her arms. “You should come home and have Mum’s moqueca instead.”
My throat aches. “Soon,” I promise them. “Em breve.”
“Oh, who’s this!” Izzy says, smiling at Bruno.
Ana introduces him with pride, holding Bruno up to the camera, which he does not particularly enjoy, judging by his indignant expression.
“He’s gorgeous,” Izzy says.
The moment I see her face as she looks at my nephew, I know why I answered the phone. This is what I wanted: to bring together these things that matter to me so much.
“Oh, wow,” Izzy says once we’ve said our goodbyes and hung up. And then, to my horror, her eyes fill with tears.
I’m beside her before I’ve realised what I’m doing, ducked down, my hand on her shoulder.
“I’m fine!” she says, patting her eyes with her sleeve. “Sorry. God, this is embarrassing.”
I fetch her the box of tissues from the coffee table, and she dabs at her face, trying not to smudge her make-up. I crouch beside her and curse myself. I hadn’t thought about how throwing Izzy into my family would make her feel. She has no family—not a single person who she knows without question would tell her that they miss her in the same breath they criticise her fish stew.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “It was thoughtless of me to answer the phone to my family.”
“I don’t know why I’m so upset.” She blows her nose. “Seeing people in super-happy families used to always get me, but I’ve not been like this for ages. It just creeps up on you sometimes, I guess. And . . . I don’t know. I’d got a bit complacent. Didn’t brace myself.” She smiles ruefully. “I haven’t been looking after myself well enough, maybe? That always has an impact on how I can handle things like this.”
I try to come up with the right thing to say, but all I can think is, I want to look after you. So that you don’t have to do it all, for once.
“Anyway,” she says, wiping her eyes decisively. “Today is your day, not mine, isn’t it? So I’d better put the self-care on the backburner.”
This lunch has been a disaster. I pause for a moment, wondering if I should just send her home to have a long bath and watch a film. But . . . I think my plan for the afternoon will make her smile. I think I can fix this. So I just straighten up and say, “Take a few moments. Then I’ll meet you downstairs.”
* * *
? ? ? ? ?
Izzy stands with her hands on her hips and surveys the product of my days off.
“If you thought I wouldn’t be able to hack this,” she says, eyes sparkling, “then you seriously underestimated me.”
I had planned to have the adventure playground finished by Christmas, but once Izzy and I settled on Thursday as Lucas Day, I knew I had to get it done sooner. I called in all the favours I had, irritating Pedro more than ever before with my chatice e perfeccionismo (fussiness and perfectionism). While it’s far from finished, it is certainly serviceable. With Poor Mandy kindly covering the front desk for a couple of hours, we have nothing to do but scale ropes and tackle monkey bars.
I know Izzy. She has the open heart of a child—she loves an adventure. An afternoon of zip wires and climbing trees will surely make her happy. And if she has to jump into my arms during any element of this afternoon, then that will be fine, too.