“It was great,” Flora said, and the words sounded genuine. “Honestly, it really woke me up. And I’ve never seen the river and the skyline at that time of the morning before.”

Aware that her dad was looking at her, Izzy tried to smile, too, even though she knew it was a poor effort.

“It was great,” she echoed, trying to sound convincing. She was exhausted with saying one thing, while meaning another. Was she thoughtful or a hypocrite? Tactful or manipulative?

“I’ll be back in time for lunch.” He glanced at his watch. “What are you going to do while I’m gone?”

Izzy turned her attention to her sister, knowing exactly how she’d love to spend the morning. “Shall we do some baking? Make cupcakes?” It was Molly’s favorite thing, particularly when they reached the decorating part.

She expected squeals of excitement and a hug, but Molly shook her head.

“I want to finish my painting with Flora.”

It was a kick in the guts. There had never been a time when Molly hadn’t wanted to bake with her. It was her favorite thing, although apparently not since Flora arrived.

“Maybe we could do both,” Flora said and Izzy felt a rush of humiliation that Flora might have guessed how hurt she felt. She didn’t want Flora to have access to her feelings. She didn’t want, or need, Flora for anything.

This situation was horrible, horrible.

She couldn’t be the first person to have gone through this, surely, although of course her case came with its particular complications.

“Don’t worry.” She worked at sounding cheerful. “I have a ton of things to do this morning.”

She’d write her blog. Maybe she’d even talk about the fact that her dad was dating. See if any of her commentators had anything useful to say on the subject. Why, she wondered, would anyone dive back into a relationship when they’d had their heart broken?

Why wasn’t her dad wounded or wary? Or if he was wounded and wary, why wasn’t that holding him back?

She wanted to think it was something inside her dad, an intrinsic optimism, rather than anything special about Flora. Did “the one” even exist? It was something she’d been thinking about a lot lately. Presumably not, or people wouldn’t get divorced. Unless the reason they were divorced was because they hadn’t married “the one.” In which case humans were obviously seriously bad at identifying the right relationship.

How could “the one” exist? It was illogical. There had to be any number of people you could be happy with, which basically made love a gamble. Izzy was well aware of the dangers of gambling.