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“Of course,” Mrs Miller said. “We’ll take care of you.”
“Aren’t we getting the ferry, then?” Rodney asked his wife.
“No. We’ll stay and look after Alanna. We can’t leave her alone after all this.”
Alanna murmured her thanks, while Rodney looked bemused.
“I thought you were desperate to get away,” he said.
“I was, yes. But that was before…”
“Oh, I see! That was back when you thought you were married to a murderer? Is that why you wanted to go to Kerry’s place – so you weren’t alone with your monster of a husband?”
“I’m never going to hear the end of this, am I?” Mrs Miller said frostily. “One mistake and it’ll haunt me forever.”
“Quite a hefty mistake,” Rodney said dryly.
“Have some compassion,” Flora growled through gritted teeth. “Imagine what I’ve been going through. On top of everything, I had the guilt of knowing it was all my fault that you’d got so angry with Vinny. If I hadn’t burned the bacon, you’d never have argued with him.”
Mr Miller looked perplexed by the turn of the conversation. “It’s not as though you burned the bacon on purpose.” His eyes widened as the truth dawned. “Oh, my goodness. You’ve been trying to get bad reviews, haven’t you?”
“I kept telling you I wanted to be closer to the grandchildren,” Flora replied sadly. “You wouldn’t listen.”
“I feel as though it’s me who’s been living with a monster,” Mr Miller grumbled without a lot of conviction.
Alanna started to cry into a wad of tissues.
“Sorry, love,” Mr Miller said sheepishly. “That was insensitive. This must be awful for you.”
“We’ve been together for ten years,” she said. “I can’t believe all of this.”
Mrs Miller rubbed Alanna’s back while mumbling sympathetic words.
“If we’re not going anywhere, I better see about getting our luggage off the boat,” Mr Miller said.
“Get Alanna’s things too,” his wife instructed him. He left immediately, while Flora continued to comfort Alanna.
“I don’t think I want to go anywhere now either,” Katie said, from behind Lily. She’d remained tightly by Oscar’s side the whole time. Lily turned and watched her look up at him with big, sorrowful eyes. “I’m sorry. I begged you to come with me and now I don’t want to go.”
“It’s fine,” Oscar said. “We’ll stay here. I’ll grab our bags.” He looked at Lily, silently telling her to keep an eye on Katie.
Lily moved to stand beside Katie, but she’d got her phone out and was too busy tapping away to notice.
“Are you okay?” Lily asked after a moment.
She sniffed as she looked up from her phone. “I messaged my mum and asked her to come and get me. I’m going to tell her everything.”
“That’s probably a good idea.”
“I suppose I’ll need to speak to the police about it, so my parents will find out, anyway.”
“Everything will be okay,” Lily said gently.
“Yeah.” She drew in a deep breath. “My mum will be fine about it. My dad will probably freak out.”
“It’s probably still better to have it all out in the open.”
“I think you’re right.” She got distracted by Mrs Miller waving her arms around.