I gathered from the evening that the brother, Michael, had been happy to go into their father’s business, this had caused even more problems when Michael couldn’t understand why his two other siblings didn’t want to.
For me, part of the problem appeared to be anyone’s reluctance to tell Héctor to quit his behaviour. Any time Héctor made a snide comment I expected Ellen to send him a dark glare with a firm word of ‘not tonight’ or anything in that vein, yet it did not pass. Instead, she bore it all with a smile, as though the problem in front of her wasn’t really happening. In a way, I admired her for that. She was the host, after all, and seemed to be concentrating on making sure I was looked after and had all the food I could wish for.
Isabella also tried her best to ignore her father, as did Tye, though Tye made no attempt at happy conversation either.
Into the night, after many uncomfortable hours had passed, Tye and I retired to his bedroom where he quickly fell back on the bed, burying his hands in his hair with a sigh.
“It’s official,” he murmured quietly. “My dad is never going to let this go.”
“Tye,” I climbed onto the bed next to him, kneeling down and trying to gain his eyes that were half hidden by his hands. “Maybe it’s time to stop avoiding the conversation and just say bluntly it’s not happening.”
“What do you think happens when we argue? That is me saying no. Just, in a roundabout way.” He took his hands away from his face, but there was a crack there. For some reason, I didn’t think he was saying it as bluntly as he could.
“Then next time, call an ultimatum.”
“Ultimatum?” His eyes settled on mine. “How do you mean? Like a threat?”
“Not exactly.” I struggled for the right words as I looked around his room. It was a lot neater than his one at Exeter, after all, he had his mum to tidy up after him here. “More a kind of… this is it, Dad, moment. This is what I’m doing, end of story. If you can’t handle it, that’s your business, I’m not changing my mind.”
“I can’t do that.” Tye lifted his hands again, covering his face as he struggled what to think.
“I have an idea,” I returned my eyes to him as I thought up a plan.
“What’s that?”
I crawled over him, enjoying how he dropped his hands to look at me with a smile.
“Distraction.” I let my hands wander up his t-shirt.
“I think we have already proved we can’t be quiet. I’m not doing that to my mum, she’s downstairs,” he laughed.
“I didn’t mean that,” I playfully hit him across the chest. “Just a little distraction,” I leaned down to kiss him, thrilled as he took control of the kiss and rolled me onto my back.
“Well, maybe a little distraction.”
Leonora was not responding to my texts.
I wanted to make up, to apologise for refusing to speak to her and making her cry, yet no reply came, even though I could see she had read the message.
As Tye and I escaped the house with his mum and his sister for a walk the following afternoon, I had grown pensive, repeatedly pulling out my phone from my pocket to check the blank screen. Still no reply.
“What is it?” Tye asked as he took hold of my other hand.
“It’s Leonora, we had an argument and she won’t reply to me,” I put the phone away again, feeling how angry it was really making me. I hadn’t apologised as such. I had tried to open the door to conversation, but with no reply, it had melded into me begging to get an answer from her.
“What did you argue about?” Tye asked, his cocoa eyes narrowing in thought.
“It’s not important,” I lied, placing the hand covered in ladybugs in my pocket to join my phone.
He saw the action though. He waited as Ellen and Isabella rounded a corner in the path up ahead as it bent passed a canal, then he pulled me back slightly, gaining my attention.
“It’s about the ladybugs on your hand, isn’t it?” His eyes were sharp, his face to the point and taut like nothing I had seen before. He was angry.
“Why are you angry?” I asked, feeling my ire at Leonora suddenly shift towards him.
“Because I’ve got enough to deal with at the moment without stupid ladybugs,” he gestured towards my hand in my pocket.
The accusation that they were stupid dug deep. I knew it was ridiculous, but I didn’t need him pointing it out to me. I tried to walk on, raising my chin and desperately looking away from him, but he pulled me back to face him from where our hands were still connected.
“Ivy –”
“Don’t take your anger out at you father on me.” My words were sharp, unfriendly and course. They cut surprisingly deep into him. I hadn’t really meant it; I just wanted his question and his own anger to stop.
“You won’t tell Leonora either, will you? That’s why you argued.”
I pushed away, letting go of his hand as we walked on down the path. He followed behind me, making no attempt to reclaim my hand.
“You know, it kind of hurts that you know all the problems in my life, yet I clearly don’t know all the ones in yours.” He didn’t look at me as he said it. He just
