“Like give and take? Like bargaining? I didn’t hear that last night, and anyway, where does that leave us now?” Her voice quivers. “Anne let me work at the shop, but I don’t know if she will anymore. If Anne doesn’t want me around and Jack doesn’t want me around—”

Sitting up fast, I take her shoulders. “Anne wants you. She loves having you here. Anyone watching can see how proud she is to have you at the shop. You’re her family.”

“Jack isn’t, but I thought he liked me. He promised I could be his intern, and now it’s Monday, and I’m still here.”

I smile, grateful to have definitive word on this, at least. “He’s coming for you at eight.”

Joy’s pretty heart-shaped face, framed with wispy curls, lights up with elation at this news, but only for an instant. In the next, the worry is back. “Then what about Anne? What if she’s expecting me to go down to the square when I wake up?”

“I’ll text her.”

“But what about Papa?”

Papa is in his own world. I had begun to think of morning as his good time, but not this day. He doesn’t look up when Joy and I enter, doesn’t respond when she says a bright, “Hi, Papa.” Still in his pajamas, which is itself unheard of, he sits at the kitchen table with his hair uncombed and his salty brows knit. He looks to be brooding. Actually, he looks defeated, to judge from the way his arms hang at his sides.

The smell of fresh coffee is strong. Margo has likely been the one to put it in front of him, but he seems oblivious to her as she leans against the counter holding a mug of her own. There is warning in her arched brow when our eyes meet. Last night is on hold. Tom Aldiss is front and center.

“Good morning, Dad,” I say. He glances only halfway up. “Joy wants breakfast before she leaves,” I add, careful not to identify who she’ll be leaving with, since Lord knows how he’d react to that. “I’m making her eggs. Do you want some?”

“I’ll make them,” Joy offers in a magnanimous tone. The pleading look she shoots me says she doesn’t know how to deal with Dad and wants an out. “Fried?” she offers him. “Scrambled?”

His mouth tightens. “I have no toothpaste.”

“Sure, you do, Dad,” Margo says and goes in search. She’s heading for his room, apparently braver than me when it comes to entering. Either that, or, like Joy, she’s just wanting something else to do.

“Scrambled,” I tell Joy, and am about to point to where the skillet is when she finds it on her own. “Make a bunch. We’ll all have some.”

She takes what she needs from the fridge and heats the pan.