“We’ll keep her in overnight to clear the alcohol from her blood.” The doctor pushed his little glasses up her nose. “Who made her vomit?” In answer, Tye pointed at me, too numb to be able to speak. “Well done. Without it, she would have had her stomach pumped. That’s never a nice thing.”
I briefly caught the look on Ellen’s face, the relief and the fear. I turned my eyes down to my lap, not able to bear looking at them all again.
“She’ll be alright though?” Héctor asked, with pleading in his voice.
“She’ll be okay.” The doctor nodded. “It’s best you all go home. Come back in the morning to see her.”
“No.” Ellen’s voice held a firm tone the like I hadn’t yet heard her use. I looked up to see her stand to her feet. “I would like to stay with my daughter tonight.”
“She is unlikely to wake for some hours,” he pushed his glasses up again.
“That is fine. Please, I would like to be with her.”
“As you wish.”
Ellen turned back to face us all.
“Come back tomorrow morning.” She ordered Héctor. He nodded and stood to his feet, urging Tye and me to do the same.
“How did you learn to do that? How could you see the signs?” Tye’s voice startled me as we all sat at the kitchen table. Héctor was passing round cups of tea. I wasn’t fond of tea, I preferred cocoa, but this was not a house that kept cocoa powder.
“My parents owned a pub,” I looked at him briefly, then back down at the tea. “I think I told you before. It was a useful thing to learn there.” I wished I had only learnt it sooner.
“I cannot believe it.” Héctor slumped down in his own chair. His pallor was pale with shock, his eyes practically quivering with fear. “You said she bought herself some of the drinks?”
“That’s what they said,” Tye nodded, leaving his tea untouched. “They bought her drinks too.”
“Who is they?”
“Her friends. A couple of people I knew from school too.” Tye placed his hands on the mug, as though contemplating taking a drink, but then changing his mind.
I scratched at the ladybugs on my hand. It felt like any second the ladybugs would jump off my skin and start dancing across the shiny white table surface.
There was no display of affection between Tye and me at that moment. No hand holding of comfort. I was too numb, as was he.
“Why would she do it?” Héctor shook his head in disbelief. “Drink so much. She is a sensible girl. She doesn’t do these kinds of things.”
“We all do strange things when we’re sad.” My words earned a sharp look from Héctor.
“Sad? Why was she sad?”
“Ivy,” Tye’s voice was harsh. “We do not know why she was drinking.”
I looked at him, the cocoa eyes were narrowed in such rage at me. It was as though he was looking at an enemy, not me. Not the person he had been so loving with over the last few days.
“I know why she was drinking, Tye.” In contrast, there was no anger left in my body. I was a shell. I spoke simply, imploring him not to be angry, yet he was. “I spoke to her this afternoon and could see she was sad.”
A sudden thump struck the table – it was Héctor’s hand.
“My daughter was not sad.” The booming words echoed through the clinical kitchen, making Tye look down into his mug. I held Héctor’s gaze, amazed at the expression behind them. The determination of belief. “I know my daughter.”
“She was haunted by sadness when I saw her this afternoon.” My plain tone only appeared to rile him more.
“You do not know my daughter more than me!”
“I am not pretending to,” the calmness was merely a numbness. Isabella was alive, thank god. She was safe, yet I never wanted her to be in that situation again, she should never feel so sad that she would want to drink her troubles away. “But I shall tell you why she was sad.”
There was something I could do for her.
“Ivy!” Tye’s words were just as full of fury as his dad’s, showing a startling resemblance. “No more.”
“Why not, Tye?” I looked up at him with surprise. “On the canal bank this afternoon she told me she was sad. She told me how badly she wanted to tell your dad that she never ever wanted to go into the car business, but that she was afraid to do it because of what happened to his family. Afraid as to how your dad would take it. That she wanted to go drinking tonight to forget about it all. She called it locking her sadness away in a cupboard.”
I had crossed a line. It was out there now.
“Ivy!” Tye pushed away in his seat, jumping to his feet and pacing around the room.
“I am looking out for my daughter’s future,” Héctor was almost desperate in his anger. “I am not the thing that is making her sad. I am looking out for her future happiness.”
“Well, she doesn’t think her future happiness resides with the car business. She went drinking to escape her thoughts.”
“Ivy!” Tye shouted my name. The sheer volume stunned me; I snapped my head round. The numbness I had felt twisted into pain at the ire in his face. “This is none of your business. You have no right to talk of these things. Just – be quiet.”
“No right?” I stood slowly to my feet, bewildered by the words. “I was there, Tye. I saw what state she was in this evening. I was there when
