face in, but this was the first time I’d recognized the grim irony here: all Melissa’s childhood soaked up by taking care of her mother, she finally got away and found a guy who would take care of her instead, and all of a sudden, hey presto, she was right back in carer mode, only now she was stuck looking after two people instead of one. “This isn’t what you signed up for.”
She turned to look at me, herb jar in her hand. “What isn’t?”
“Being Hugo’s carer.”
“I only checked him over.”
“You’re doing a lot more than that.”
Melissa shrugged. “I don’t mind. I’m not just saying that; I honestly, truly don’t mind. Hugo’s wonderful.”
“I know. But this was only supposed to be for a few days.” We had been at the Ivy House for over three weeks by this point. Melissa had made a couple of trips to her place and mine, to pick up more clothes, but somehow the subject of moving back had never come up. “Maybe you should go home.”
She leaned back against the counter, eyes scanning my face, soup forgotten. “Do you want me to?”
“It’s not that,” I said. “I love you being here. It’s just that”—saying it to her felt like a commitment somehow, one I wasn’t sure I was ready to make, but it was too late—“I’ve been thinking I might stay on for a while longer.”
Melissa’s whole face lit up. “Oh, I’ve been hoping you would! I didn’t want to ask— I know someone else could take over, but Hugo loves having you here, Toby. It means the world to him. I’m so glad— And of course I’ll stay. I want to.”
“It’s one thing now,” I said. “But it’s going to get worse. And I don’t want you dealing with that.”
“As long as you’re here, I’m here. Oops—” She whirled around to the soup, which had started to hiss and foam ominously, and turned down the gas. “This is ready. Did you put the toast on?”
“It’s not just Hugo,” I said, with incredible difficulty; the words hurt coming out. “You’ve done a fair bit of taking care of me, this last while.”
That made her smile at me, over her shoulder. “I like taking care of you.”
“I don’t like you having to do it. I hate it. Specially what with your mother.”
“That’s not the same thing,” Melissa said instantly, turning from the cooker, and there was an absolute, iron inflexibility to her voice that I’d never heard there before. “You didn’t do this to yourself. Any more than Hugo did. It’s completely different.”
“It comes to the same thing, though. This isn’t what you should be doing. When we’re eighty, sure, but now . . . you should be out dancing. Going to festivals. Having picnics. Sun holidays. All the stuff we—” My voice shook. I’d had this conversation in my head a thousand times, but I’d never had the strength to do it out loud and it was just as tough as I’d thought it would be. “This isn’t what I want for you.”
“Well, if I could pick anything in the world, this isn’t what I’d want for you, either,” Melissa said matter-of-factly. “But it’s what we’ve got.”
“Believe me, this isn’t what I want for myself, either. Jesus, this is just about the last thing—” My stupid voice cracked again. “But I don’t have a choice. You do.”
“Course I do. And I want to be here.”
All this unruffled composure wasn’t what I was used to from Melissa—I had held her while she freaked out about Niall the pathetic semi-stalker, for God’s sake, when she burst into tears over refugee kids on the news or starved puppies on Facebook—and it was kind of disconcerting. When I’d had this conversation in my head, I had been the steady one, comforting her.
“I want you to be happy,” I said. “And there isn’t a way for that to happen while you’re here. While you’re”—I had to take a breath for this—“while you’re with me. I’m supposed to make your life better. Not worse. And I think, I really think I used to do that. But now—”
“You absolutely make my life better. Silly.” She reached out to put a hand to my cheek, kept it there, small and warm. “And so does being here. It’s not just because of Hugo that I’m glad we’re staying, you know. Being here is—” A quick breath of a laugh. “It’s been so good for you, Toby. You’re getting better. Maybe you don’t notice