“Oh no,” Daisy said, stabbing her own fork into a chip. Ever since Clara had met Leisha at some online casino where they kept sending each other virtual cocktails, Leisha’s phone reception had been dodgy about fifty percent of the time. Daisy had repeatedly witnessed Clara run out of the office all excited with her phone in her hands, only to return seconds later, deflated. In the early days of their five-year friendship, Daisy had watched as Clara became brokenhearted by some woman or another who she’d fallen for hard and fast. Leisha was just another future heartbreak in Daisy’s eyes, but with the added complication of living in America and most likely being some kind of scam artist. “What’s she doing out there?”
“Cheffing on a boat there for a few months. They’re taking samples of the ice for climate change or something.”
God she was good, Daisy would give her that. A chef! Fighting for climate change! No reception!
“That sounds very noble. Is there a chance I might... meet her one day?”
“Of course,” Clara said. “We’re figuring it all out with her schedule, but it’s going to be soon. Definitely within the next few months. I might even meet her for the first timeat your wedding,” Clara said, like that would be some huge exciting adventure rather than the most terrifying day of her life. “Sorry. No morewtalk. But yeah. She’s just away a lot. It’s really good money over Christmas.”
“That does make it difficult.” Daisy always had so many more questions, but the loved-up look on Clara’s face made it impossible to ask any of them, so instead she smiled. “Soon though.”
“Soon!” Clara said through a mouthful of food. “Fucking hell, those peas! I always forget how good they are.”
Daisy scanned the sparsely filled restaurant, her eyes landing on a woman alone at a table in the corner, reading.
“Tell me if this is weird,” Daisy said, turning her attention back to Clara. “There’s this guy who gets the same bus as me every morning—”
“So far no,” Clara interrupted.
Daisy rolled her eyes, and they laughed. “It’s been three months, and I know that because he first got onto the bus during that horrific heat wave. Anyway... he’s been reading the same book over and over again.”
“What book?” Clara asked, looking intrigued.
“Orlandoby Virginia Woolf.”
“What’s it about?”
“Clara, you’re missing the point.”
She picked up a chip and bit the end off it, dipping it back into her mushy peas. “Am I, or are you just going all investigative journalist on it? How many times do you reckon he’s read it?”
“Atleastsix times.”
Finally, she frowned. “Okay. That’s quite weird.”
“It is, isn’t it?”
“Hey, speaking of weird, how’s Dan getting on?”
Daisy felt a restless buzzing under her skin at the mention of her brother. She stilled her shoulders. “Absolutely loving it, which has come as a shock to be honest. He’s claiming he’s a born traveler despite rarely leaving Mum’s side until a month ago.”
“Well it’s not like he’s been given the chance before.”
“True.” She shrugged. Her mum had always held on to both of them, but her grip on Dan was the tightest and Daisy knew that made his life harder than hers—at least where their mum was concerned. After meeting Zack, Daisy had been able to leave Manchester and start her own life, whereas Dan was always needed for something. Or he’d try to go and their mum would rent him a flat overlooking the water or pay for him to do some course he’d always wanted to do. She knew how to keep him and he knew he was being kept, but it sort of worked in his favor to allow it.
Dan shocked them all when he quit his marketing job and announced he was going traveling for a while and didn’t know when he’d be back. While Daisy knew it was probably exactly the right thing for him to do, she couldn’t help but worry. She’d spent her early years protecting her little brother in all the ways possible, and while she’d stepped back from that role after their dad died, it had resurfaced at the mention of him going away, no matter how many times he reassured her that he’d be fine. That she didn’t need to look out for him anymore. No one did. He was a grown man in his mid-twenties. Daisy had experienced a rush of jealousy at those words. Who just did that? Dropped everything to travel? Wasn’t that the age where you were supposed to build your career, or at least be in full-time employment, growing your savings and getting a mortgage? Settling down with a partner?
“Are you going to go out and join him for any of it? Maybe use some of that annual leave we get on an actual holiday for once?”
“Can you imagine? Mum’s hardly coping with just Dan being away. I think if I was gone too, she’d self-combust. She needs us around. Dan to mother and me to look after her while she does it.”
Clara raised a single eyebrow. “You hear what an odd sentence that is, right?”
Daisy shrugged. “It’s all part of being in the Dead Dad Club,” she said. “Everything gets mixed up.” She tried to laugh it off, but Clara reached across the table and took her hand, squeezing it.
“It sounds like a pretty shit club,” she said in the soft voice that always made Daisy want to turn and run. “Have you ever... spoken to anyone about it? Like, therapy-wise? Surely they offered that for grieving kids?”
Daisy bristled at the mention of it, an image of Zack in his big velvet green chair appearing in her mind, one ankle resting on the knee of his other leg, a mustard sock poking out from his brown suede shoe. His voice low as he said, “Have you heard of the attachment style called ‘love avoidant’?”
