‘You c-cannot know that,’ Beatrice returned. ‘S-Some people s-spend their whole lives l-looking and are s-still. Doomed. To misery.’

‘Not me,’ Rosa said fiercely. ‘Surely if there’s one thing your plum trees prove, it’s that there is no way to live a perfect life free from suffering, but there are a hundred different ways to be happy. Take James.’ She swallowed hard, trying to keep a grip on her yearning for a man who would never be hers and a life that was no longer possible. ‘We were happy together – in that other life I saw in the plum rain. But he’s happy in this life too, with her … with Jani.’ Saying her name aloud seemed to break some kind of inner dam, and Rosa felt the waves of jealousy, and sorrow, and loss crash into her over and over again, so that she had to grit her teeth and focus all her willpower on not being taken down by them. ‘There is no one perfect life,’ she said quietly. ‘And no one perfect soulmate. There must be hundreds … thousands of different people who happen to be on this earth at the same time as us and who we could find joy with. There’s happiness waiting out there for me somewhere, I know it, and I won’t rest until I find it. I want someone to share my life with, someone who will love Ada and me the way we deserve to be loved. I’ve learned the hard way that we look for happiness in all the wrong places and put importance on all the wrong things. And you were right. But your garden also taught me that good things can come from hardship, that a poinsettia needs periods of darkness for its leaves to turn that beautiful red—’

‘P-people are not p-plants,’ Beatrice replied sadly. ‘If I r-ride the carousel I can f-fix all our p-problems. Both yours and m-mine.’

‘But that isn’t true!’ Rosa exclaimed. ‘How can you say such a thing? It would not fix your problems at all. You’ve seen what life with Eustace would be like. You’ve seen the misery you would live in.’

Beatrice shrugged and her tone was impatient. ‘I l-live in m-misery now! At least this w-way I would have m-made my m-m-mother happy when it m-mattered. And I w-would h-help you t-too—’

‘Surely you do not have such little regard for yourself that you will meekly surrender to unhappiness in such a cowardly manner?’

‘C-C-C-Cowardly?’ Beatrice could barely utter the word. The very suggestion of it infuriated her. It was so very unfair. ‘I am p-prepared to m-make a g-great s-s-sacrifice—’

‘For who, Beatrice? Certainly not for me. I tell you I don’t want your sacrifice, and your mother wouldn’t want it, either. She would want you to live the best life you can.’