At Dad’s memorial service, Mam soothed a fretful Seren with a bottle.
“I’ve got no milk,” she said truthfully to friends with shining eyes. Ffion’s breasts ached. She stared at Dad’s photo on the order of service, feeling guilty that the tears she shed were as much for Seren as for him.
“Be strong,cariad,” people murmured. “Your mam’s going to need help with your baby sister.”
Ffion has been strong for sixteen years. She is exhausted.
Leo hauls Seren up and over his shoulder as though she weighs nothing. He runs toward the boathouse, looking back to check on Ffion, who’s barely able to support her own body, let alone carry another. She stumbles behind Leo, not taking her eyes off the limp girl over his shoulder.
As Seren grew from baby to toddler, Ffion trained herself to forget. She made herself thinksister, notdaughter. She forced herself to forget the birth, to pretend her belly had never been full, and slowly, she began to believe it. She pushed Seren away. Told herself Seren was too small, too needy, too immature. Too irritating.
Ffion chokes back a sob. It was survival, that was all. Grief for a baby lost, even though Seren had lived.
At the boathouse, everything is as they left it. Steffan’s comatose at his desk, and Ffion ransacks the cupboards, pulling out fleeces and spare socks, while Leo calls for an ambulance. Swiftly, Ffion removes Seren’s wet clothes, enveloping her in the dry ones she’s found and ignoring her own chattering teeth. Seren murmurs, drifting in and out of consciousness.
Ffion pulls a hat over Seren’s sodden hair. The shock of cold water makes you hyperventilate, reducing the flow of blood to the brain. That’s what makes your head fill with fog: what causes you to pass out. Seren is not out of danger—not by a long way.
“Did you check for injuries?” Leo’s examining the drenched life jacket Seren was wearing. “Cuts?”
“Yes, of course.”
He runs his fingers over the jacket. “Check again.” Panic rises in Ffion’s chest. Has she missed something in her haste to get Seren warm and dry? She traces a path around Seren’s head, feeling for bumps, checking for blood. Seren moans, and Ffion cups her face, reassuring her that help is on its way. She moves her hands down each of Seren’s arms and around her torso, but there are no marks. If Seren has injuries, they’re hidden. In the distance, Ffion hears the wail of an ambulance siren.
“I don’t understand.” Leo frowns, passing the life jacket to Ffion. It would have been white at some stage, now a dirty gray. An old-fashioned jacket, bulky and square. “This is definitely blood on the side, at the back.”
The stain is brown and earthy, ingrained in the fabric despite immersion in water. Ffion stares at it. If it isn’t Seren’s blood, whose is it?
Fifty-Five
January 9
Leo
Ffion’s waiting for Leo at the lake the next morning, her hands pushed deep into her huge coat and the toes of her boots dark with lake water. Leo gets out of the car and walks toward her, feeling suddenly awkward. Last night was more intense—more intimate, even—than the time he and Ffion had spent together on New Year’s Eve, and everything Leo wants to say seems inadequate.
He stands a few steps behind her. “Big night,” he says quietly. The lake is flat calm, the surface so glassy Leo feels he could step right onto it. Trees stretch their reflections onto the water without so much as a ripple to shatter the illusion. Overnight, the storm has cleared, leaving snow-covered mountains beneath a bright blue sky.
Ffion says nothing. She moves backward, just a step, and Leo moves forward, so that when she tips her head back to lean against him, he’s already there. They stand watching the lake, Leo’s chin grazing Ffion’s hair, and after a moment, he slides his arms around hers. He thinks of her at the wheel of Steffan’s boat, fear channeled into grit, and knows he’ll never meet another woman quite like her.
“Pretty big,” Ffion says eventually.
“You take me to all the best places.”
Ffion laughs and turns around, and for a second, they’re so close it feels as though they might—
“Don’t suppose you stopped for coffee?” Ffion walks toward the car, the moment lost.
“Flat white, one sugar.”
“You’re going to make someone a lovely wife.”
As they drive toward Angharad’s, Leo casts surreptitious glances at Ffion, whose eyes are swollen and bloodshot. She cradles her coffee in both hands, steam warming her face.
“Did you get any sleep at all?”
“Not really.”
“You should be at the hospital, with Seren.”