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Hope turned to see Ava, bag over her shoulder, walking up the short path to her front door. “Fine,” she said, still salty from Ava’s refusal to have a celebratory drink.

“Yet it’s obviously not,” said Ava, stopping.

Hope growled. “If you must know, my ex isn’t picking up and I need to take my mother to the hospital. Which means I now need to wrangle Alice into something that isn’t fairy wings and football shorts and drag her with me too.”

“I see.” Ava bit her lip and Hope saw a look of something cross her face. Regret perhaps? She really wasn’t sure. “That doesn’t sound like a healthy place for Alice to be.”

“It’s probably not,” said Hope, irritated even more now because of course it wasn’t and she didn’t need Ava to point that out. “And we’ll be there for hours, well past her bed time.”

Ava closed her eyes for the briefest moment and Hope knew what she was going to say and prayed for her to say it even as she hated depending on Ava to say it. “I suppose I could…” Ava began.

“Could you?” said Hope far too quickly. “It’d be such a help and I’ll be as fast as I can. Dinner’s already made. You just have to sit with her while she eats and then she can watch TV for an hour. She can shower herself and get into bed, then read her a story. That’s all.” She had another thought. “And feel free to eat too, there’s plenty of spaghetti.”

Ava blew out a breath looking quite exhausted, but nodded. “Let me just put my bag inside and get my book and I’ll come over.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Hope said, knowing full well that this wasn’t something that Ava wanted to do and feeling like she was taking advantage but not sure what other choice she had.

“I TOLD YOU I was fine,” grumbled Caz as they walked up the garden path.

“And I told you that it was better safe than sorry,” said Hope. Her bag rattled with the painkillers they’d been given for Caz’s headache.

“Well, now it’s close to midnight and I’m exhausted, so forgive me if I go and take my shower and get into bed when we get in.”

“Of course,” said Hope, feeling slightly guilty. She’d forgotten the time and now it was so late. Ava must be fuming.

She unlocked the door quietly and let her mother go inside first. The light was on in the living room. “Go on upstairs,” she told Caz. “I’ll deal with Ava.”

“Make sure you thank her,” Caz said.

Hope rolled her eyes because no matter how old she got, her mother was still her mother. Like she’d forget to say thank you.

She pushed open the living room door and then stopped.

Alice and Ava were on the couch, a red-blonde head against a curly-dark head, both breathing deeply, a book between them. Ava’s glasses were askew and Alice had biscuit crumbs around her mouth. And both looked very relaxed and very, very asleep.

Hope leaned against the doorway. Wouldn’t it be nice, said a little voice in the back of her head, to have this all the time? Wouldn’t it be nice for Alice to have more than just a divorced, split-up family?

Ava’s face was softer in sleep, her features less sharp and Hope had the feeling that she was seeing the woman without her shell. How hard must it have been to have been left like that. To have built a life based on one thing only to have it snatched out from under her. Ava must be hurting, she must ache with it every day. Yet she still showed up, still did a job she was so obviously uncomfortable doing.

Hope couldn’t help but feel sympathy. Sympathy and… and something else. Something warm and growing inside that she really didn’t want to think about. Especially right now when Ava had one arm around her daughter.

Perhaps something could happen though. Maybe she was ready for that now. Maybe she could be a little nicer, a little more forward and who knew? Ava was around until the end of the school year, after all. Perhaps something could develop.

For a second, Hope had an image of Ava’s hair splayed out on her pillow like a fairy crown and she had to shake her head to clear the picture.

Ava wasn’t so bad.

“Oh, you decided to come home then?”

Hope turned her eyes back to the couch to see Ava awake. “Sorry?”

“You could have called,” said Ava, obviously irritated. “We tried calling you.”

“I had my phone switched off, it’s a hospital,” said Hope.

“Well, little miss over here didn’t want to sleep without saying goodnight to you.”

Hope sighed. “You should have put her in bed. She was pulling one over on you, getting you to let her stay up later than her bed-time.”