On the way home, I think of Miranda’s face all scratched and punched up. I think of Miranda’s dad with the bunch of flowers and Legs dancing on her daddy’s feet. I think of “dith-spicable.”
“So?” Mom says. Her knee is bouncing up and down. “Are you going to tell me what happened?”
“Miranda just made me mad, that’s all.”
“What did she do to make you mad?”
“Stuff.”
Mom looks at me quickly, then back at the road. “Was she talking about Daddy?”
“I don’t want to tell you,” I say.
“Why not, Clem?”
I sigh crossly. “I’m not Clem. I’m Laila.”
Mom blinks. “Okay. Why don’t you want to tell me, Laila?”
“Because,” I say. “I don’t want to hurt your feelings.”
I look out the window on my side. For a while, Mom doesn’t say anything. Then we stop at the traffic lights.
“What if you told someone else?” she says slowly. “Another grown-up, someone you don’t know. You could tell them exactly how you feel, and you won’t have to worry about their feelings. How does that sound?”
“Okay.”
“Good,” she says. “Good.”
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
“Are we going to have a little one-on-one time?”
She smiles. “We sure are. You can come to work with me and be my very special helper.”
I smile, too. I’m a good helper. I’ll help Mom set the table and we’ll make peanut butter Bundt cake for the residents. Peanut butter Bundt cake was Daddy’s favorite.
“Mom?” I say.
“Mmm?”
“I don’t want to say sorry to Miranda.”
We’re at home now. Mom stops the car and turns off the engine. She turns to face me. “I think it would be good if you did, hon.”
“Why?”
“Because you hurt her. And if you hurt someone, you should say you’re sorry.”
“But Miranda hurt me,” I say, “and she doesn’t have to say sorry.”
Mom opens her mouth, but before she can speak, I crawl into her lap and burst into tears.
25
Eve
It’s hard to describe the joy I feel when I pull my first carrot out of my Rosalind House vegetable patch. It’s a sunny day, and despite a brisk breeze, the whole gang is out here—Clara and Gwen, Luke and Anna. I’ve come to think of the vegetable patch as “our patch,” and I think they have, too. We’ve been working hard all morning, and now Anna and Luke sit on the edge of the garden bed, enjoying the sunshine while Clara and Gwen drink lemonade under the tree. The air smells of earth and herbs. The only sound of significance is the shear of the secateurs as Angus cuts stems.
Clem is out here, too. I think of her yesterday, clawing at Miranda. It was so out of character. Apart from when she was a toddler (and even then, it was only with good reason), I’d never seen Clem hit another child. Now, looking at her, it’s hard to imagine. She watches Angus intently as he explains the different kinds of flowers and how to make them last. Whenever he is around, she seems to gravitate toward him. He is sweet to her, but it makes me wonder—what is she lacking? What can I do to help fill the hole?
I’d spent the previous night searching for a child psychologist for Clem, and I’d managed to get an appointment next week, but in the meantime, her mental health was in my hands. And it wasn’t only her mental health in jeopardy. I couldn’t stop thinking about how Ms. Donnelly looked at me as she recited my address. Did she know something? If she did, I could only hope that she was too distracted by everything that was going on with Clem to figure out what.
I pick some sprigs of rosemary for the roast lamb and some mint for the ice water. Bert won’t like it; he told me off last week for “fancying up the water” (with lemons, that day), but he’s going to have to live with it. It’s a minty-ice-water kind of day.
“Is this enough flowers for you, Eve?” Angus asks. His arms are laden with chrysanthemums, lilies, and hibiscuses—enough to fill an auditorium.
I laugh. “You’re kidding, right?”
Angus doesn’t laugh, but his eyes crinkle in the corners, and I guess this is the best I’m going to get. His cool, silent thing is starting to grow on me. Richard was quick to smile, to compliment. After a while, with someone like that, it starts to lose its value. “If there are leftovers,” he says, “just take them home. Put them in your bedroom.”
The word “bedroom” makes me blush.
“My mother used to say that a woman should always have flowers in her bedroom,” he says.
“Did she say why?”
Angus typically just shrugs. But I notice his cheeks are a little pink, too.
A sudden flash of movement to our left steals our attention. An enormous dog has bounced into the yard with its owner on its heels.
“Rupert! Rupert!”