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“We have two cats?”

“What am I supposed to do? I’m not going to throw him out into the garden, am I?”

Caz sniffed. “Suppose not.” She eyed her daughter. “And now you’re getting all upset because the cat has a love interest and you don’t, I suppose?”

Hope rolled her eyes even though deep in her mind that was exactly what she’d been thinking. “Of course not.”

Caz sat down at the kitchen table. “You are moping though.”

Hope took a seat opposite her. There was no point lying. Caz knew her better than anyone in the world, and she’d ferret out the truth eventually. “Yes, fine, I’m moping.”

“Sometimes things don’t work out,” said Caz.

“I know that, I’m not a child. I’m a divorced woman, for God’s sake.” Hope rubbed at her tired eyes. “It’s just… I don’t know. I feel like there’s more to this, that this isn’t the way it’s supposed to go.”

“Let me ask you this,” Caz said, leaning forward. “What would make you happy?”

“Honestly?”

“If you lie to me, Hope Perkins, I’ll have your guts for garters. Of course honestly.”

“More time to figure this out. More time to consider the possibilities.” Hope bit her lip. No, more honest than that. “If Ava stayed.” Once the words were out there, they seemed like the only possible truth. She wanted Ava to stay, no matter how selfish that might be.

“And can’t she?”

“How?” Hope asked. “And how could I ask her to? You don’t just ask someone to up-end their life for you, just on a whim.”

“Is this a whim?”

“No,” Hope said immediately.

“Well then,” said Caz. “Besides, we ask people to up-end their lives for us all the time. We ask people to marry us, to have children with us, we ask people if we can move in with them and bring our child and live all together.”

“Okay, okay, I get your point. But that’s different.”

“Is it?” asked Caz. “Is it really? Because I feel like you might be cutting off your nose to spite your face here. Have you asked her to stay? Or even floated the possibility that you’d like her to stay?”

“No, of course not,” Hope said. “I don’t want to put this on her, that’s unfair.”

“Why do you want her to stay?”

Hope looked into her mother’s kind, brown eyes and shrugged. “No reason,” she said, still determined to be honest. “Just… My life is better with her in it, that’s all. As irritating and annoying as she can be, I look forward to seeing her in the morning. Which is why I can’t ask her to stay, because what kind of reason is that?”

“The best one,” Caz said quietly. “What more can you ask of life than that? To be with someone that you look forward to waking up next to? Someone whose very face makes you want to be alive? You know what we call that? A reason for living, Hope. And if Ava gives you a reason for living, well, you’ve got it worse than even I suspected.”

Rosie jumped up onto the kitchen table, her meal finished. She purred and rubbed her face against Hope’s hand. Her boyfriend jumped up too, sitting quietly on the corner of the table, watching.

“It’s no good, mum. I like her. I like her a lot, more even than I’d realized. But I can’t ask her to stay here. Stay here for what? With the school maybe closing it’s not as though she’ll have a hope of finding a job. She’s better off going back to America.”

Caz shook her head. “You’re a fool to turn down a chance of happiness, Hope.”

“I’m not turning it down. I just… I don’t know how to get it. I don’t know a fair and equal way of making everyone happy.”

“Then find a way,” said Caz, pushing her chair back. “Otherwise, you’re going to be miserable.” She stood up and went to the sink, picking up a tea towel to dry the dishes Hope had washed. “You coming to help here?”

Hope stood up and went back to the sink.

It was all very well her mother doling out advice. It was all very well being able to admit to herself that she liked Ava a lot. It was all very well saying she wanted Ava to stay. But she wasn’t a child. She knew that life didn’t always work out.