“My anger just . . . exploded,” Zeb continued. “I think it was the shock of realizing this was real, she was missing . . . and then you and I argued, Mum, and you refused to even acknowledge you’d done anything wrong. And I know I was in the wrong, too, but I couldn’t think straight. I wrote that note and I . . .” He broke down into sobs, dropping his head into his hands.

“The last note was aimed at me?” Emma asked, choked with tears too.

“I wish I could take it back. All of it.”

Emma jumped to her feet, her own hurt overtaken by the sight of him so distraught. He hadn’t cried like that since he was tiny. She hugged him from behind, burying her face in his hood; it smelled woody, like a bonfire.

“Oh, shit,” Zeb kept saying, swiping at his eyes. “Shit.” Eventually he stood and ran out of the kitchen, toward the bathroom.

Emma looked at her mum, mainly to avoid looking at Robin. “What are we going to do?” she said.

For once, Julie seemed lost for words. Her gaze flicked to Robin as if to imply that she wasn’t the person Emma should be asking. Emma felt Robin’s eyes on her, and in her mind it was that blank stare from across a classroom as he’d failed to stick up for her, even after he’d been inside her.

But she made herself look back at him. At first all she saw was an older version of the boy who’d followed Andy’s every cruel command. Longer hair, and the freckled, mildly weathered skin of somebody who worked outdoors a lot. After a moment or two, though, she couldn’t help but see Zeb in him. And she had to acknowledge he looked as sad as she felt.

“Emma,” he said, and still she shuddered at her name on his lips. “We need to be there for him.”

“No, I do.”

“Emma.” God, she wished he would stop saying it. “I’m so, so sorry for how I treated you at school. I was a coward. Unforgivable. But if it makes any difference at all, I really did like you. You didn’t follow the crowd the way I did. The way I followed that scumbag Andy.”

Emma made a noise of disbelief. Robin kept going: “I’m not making excuses. I was an utter bastard. But I swear I’m not that guy anymore. It keeps me awake at night, thinking about everything Andy did, and how I let him. Then finding out years later that I’d got you pregnant . . . It was the shock of my life. I can’t blame you for not wanting me to have anything to do with Zeb . . . but you’ve done an amazing job. He’s funny, smart, passionate, artistic . . . Basically, from what I can make out, he’s you.”