Harriet stared at him. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter now. What matters is that this summer you persuaded her to drop her guard. And then when she had a little wobble, and was feeling at her most vulnerable, instead of being patient and encouraging her, you hurt her.”
He frowned. “I didn’t—”
“I haven’t finished.” Harriet stepped forward, eyes sparking, and he wondered how he ever could have thought she was even-tempered and mild.
He might have been looking at Fliss.
“It’s uncanny—”
“What is?”
“Never mind. You were in the middle of explaining to me all the ways in which I’ve messed up.”
“That’s right. She opened up, and the result was that she got hurt. And instead of understanding that, instead of seeing that she’d fallen and needed time to pick herself up, you pushed her down again. You showed her that you couldn’t be trusted to be there for her, which is going to teach her never to open up again. And I am scared, really scared, of what that means for her future. If you can’t reach her, no one ever will.”
“Tell me who made the phone call.”
“Vanessa. But before you get all flinty-eyed, it was a good phone call.”
Harriet planted herself in front of him and Seth realized how much she’d changed.
They’d all changed, him included.
“I should have known something had happened. And you’re right, I shouldn’t have pushed her away. I was wrong, but then it seems I was wrong about a lot of things, including you. I didn’t know you had a steely side.”
“Well, now you know, and given neither of us knows how deep it runs or just how far I’d be prepared to go to defend my sister, you’d better not hurt her.”
He gave a faint smile. “From now on I’ll be sleeping with the doors locked.”
“Hurt my sister, and that’s probably a good idea.”
* * *
IT HAD TAKEN her two hours of walking on the beach to pluck up the courage she needed to drive to Seth’s. Two hours of going over it in her mind and in her heart and measuring risk.
And it was a risk.
When she finally arrived back at the beach house, Harriet was in the kitchen cooking with their grandmother.
Both of them glanced up.
Fliss looked at her sister. “Are you all right? You’re flushed. As if you’ve been rushing around.”
“The heat of the oven.” Harriet brushed flour from her fingers. “How was your walk?”
“Good. It helped me think. I—” She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to pull together the last strands of her courage. “I need to go out for a while.”
“No problem.” Calm, Harriet carefully arranged sliced apple in a dish and added cinnamon and brown sugar. It was only once she heard the front door close that she sank onto the nearest chair and looked at her grandmother. “What if I made a mistake?”
“You did the right thing, honey. And it was brave. I can’t believe you drove over there and confronted him.”
“I can’t believe it either. I shook the whole time.”
“No stammer?”
“No stammer. And it felt good. Protecting her for once felt good. Now we just have to see if she can stop protecting herself long enough to tell him how she feels.”
It took Fliss ten minutes to drive to Seth’s house, and all the way she had to stop herself turning around.