His eyes are bright with tears when I glance up. I don’t know what to say to him. His daughter died and now his wife has left him and come to live with us. It’s all so wrong. He should hate us; he should be chasing me away from his house with a pitchfork. Instead, he’s letting me help him garden and he’s made me a cup of tea. The sun shines down on him and the light makes him look younger and a million times better-looking than his sons.

“And honestly, I don’t know. We’d been having problems for a while.”

The moment grows more awkward. I don’t want to hear about his marital problems. I feel hot and uncomfortable as he sighs. He’s right behind me and I can feel the sigh on the back of my neck.

“You know we’re not actually married?”

I almost drop the clippers I’m holding.

“We got together so young—not much older than you. Julia fell pregnant with Jack and we moved in together. Never quite got around to the whole marriage thing. I suppose that made it easier for her to walk away. No messy divorce. The house is half hers but she hasn’t asked for anything.” He pauses. “Not yet, anyway.”

“Not necessarily a good thing,” I mutter. “That it was so easy for her to walk away. Not good for you or the boys, anyway.”

“I’m glad you came,” he says. “It’s good to have someone on my side.” Am I on his side? How can I be when the other side is my dad? “Most people have avoided me—no one seems to know what to say.” He touches my hand as he says it, the slightest brush of skin against skin, but it makes me shiver. He’s like his sons and nothing like Max—there’s that spark of danger that Bella and all her friends drool over, in his hand on mine, but it makes me want to run and hide.

“Come back anytime,” he says, and when I look down I see he’s not trying to hold my hand, or whatever ridiculous notion passed through my mind, he’s pressing a key into my palm.