Her parents should have been together forever. They should have lived side by side until they were both old and boring and had no teeth, and instead—

Izzy gulped.

Right now she badly needed her dad not to be a forever type. She needed him to be a one-night-stand type. The type who moved on.

She tensed as he shifted Molly onto his hip and reached out his free arm to Flora.

“Come here.”

The fact that he was willing to comfort her in front of Molly alarmed Izzy more than the water sloshing round her ankles.

“Probably best not to give me sympathy. I don’t want to raise the water level farther by crying.” Flora stepped away from him and squelched her way across what had presumably once been a carpet, toward a bed. “I managed to rescue some of my books, and my laptop is fine. My clothes are mostly ruined but it’s all replaceable. It’s people that matter, not things.”

Did she seriously mean that?

Molly pointed. “You saved my picture!”

Izzy followed the direction of her sister’s finger and there, sure enough, was the fox Flora had drawn. Seriously? All your worldly goods were under threat and you saved a stupid piece of coloring?

Flora was smiling. “Of course I saved your picture. It’s my favorite thing. I didn’t want it to be damaged.”

Molly preened and Izzy gnashed her teeth.

It was just a fox, not a van Gogh. “Were you in the bed when the ceiling came down?”

“No. Fortunately I felt water dripping on me and got out of bed to investigate about two minutes before it collapsed.” Flora rubbed her hands over her arms and stared at the mess. “It’s my fault.”

“What?” Even Izzy, who was desperately looking to blame Flora for everything and anything, couldn’t see how one person could have caused this. “How?”

“There was a weird stain on the ceiling. I’ve watched it slowly growing. I mentioned it to the landlord, but he didn’t bother investigating. Now it seems it was probably a slow leak from the pipe in the upstairs bathroom. I should have been a little more forceful.”

Izzy stared at the mess. “You should.”

Flora straightened her back. “The landlord has called a plumber. And the insurance people are coming to take a look. He’ll fix it, I’m sure.”

She didn’t look sure and Izzy, who knew nothing about home maintenance, was even less sure. Could this place be fixed? It seemed to her that it should be knocked down.

She felt a sinking feeling in her gut as her father reached out and pulled Flora against him in a protective gesture that Izzy wished she hadn’t witnessed. He cared.