He stretched out his legs. “Molly’s always been a talker. Confident. Outgoing. The problem was getting her to listen, not getting her to speak, but now she rarely speaks in class. Since Becca died, she’s been withdrawn and quiet. The night you visited, I barely recognized her. The old Molly would have been chatting about everything, showing you her toys, demanding that you watch her dance. She loved to dance.”

Flora’s heart ached for her. “Her world has changed, and she hasn’t yet changed with it. But she’ll dance again one day, I’m sure of it.”

“Were you the same?”

“Changed? Of course. Nothing in my life stayed the same.” She didn’t usually talk about it, but if her experience could help Molly in some small way then she was willing to do so. And they were about to break up anyway so there didn’t seem much point in guarding her words or trying to protect herself. “I didn’t only lose my mother, I lost my home and the world I knew. It will take time for Molly to adjust to her new normal. I expect her emotions are all over the place.” And she’d probably made it worse.

“I’ve noticed that occasionally she’ll laugh at something and then she immediately stops and looks horrified. It’s as if she thinks she’s not allowed to have fun anymore.”

Flora understood that. “You feel guilty. Disloyal. And you’re afraid that if you laugh, it might appear that you loved the person less.”

“Can you remember when you started to feel like your old self?”

This conversation was becoming more personal than she’d intended.

“No one stays the same throughout their life. We’re all changed and formed by the things that happen to us and to the people we love. And people carry on, even when they’re wounded.” As, no doubt, she was about to prove yet again.

“Did it get easier?” He shifted on the seat so he could see her face properly. “And don’t sugarcoat it. I genuinely want to know. It’s been a year. I need to figure out what I can do to help Molly.”

Molly. She’d finish the conversation about Molly and then she’d end it.

“If anything the second year was harder than the first for me. Everyone else had moved on. People forgot. But I didn’t. The reminders were constant. Every time there was a parent teacher evening, every time my friends moaned about their parents.” Thinking about it ripped her open. Why was she doing this to herself?

Molly. She was doing it for Molly.

“Did anything help?”

“A teacher at my school suggested I write down everything I could remember about my mother. That turned out to be comforting.”