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business.”
    Her chin wobbled. Oh fuck , Abigail thought. She’s blocking my exit, how would I get out of here? “I just feel angry. All the time.”
    “Why?”
    She shook her head. “I don’t know. Why you’d care.”
    Abigail sighed. “Sit down, Leila. Look, your dad told me you had some therapy after your mum died. The therapist would have explained to you the stages of grief, right? You’re stuck. On anger. From what your nan told my mum, you were fine. Up until a few months ago. You have your nan, your mum’s parents and your dad. Everyone around you is trying to look out for you. You went to Sunday school at my old church with your nan most Sundays. So you know right from wrong. It makes what you did even worse.”
    “I know. I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice cracking with tears. Her hands were twisted in her lap. Taking a tissue from the rose-printed box on her desk, Abigail handed it over. Leila started shredding it between her blue-tipped fingers.
    “Is it school? I mean, it’s the summer holidays.” She shook her head again. “Well, is it your friends? Who were the other little bas...troublemakers who egged the café?” Leila sent her a look through red-rimmed eyes. All right, fine. “You should say. Why should you be punished and they get away with it?”
    “Abigail, come on. You don’t want me to get into more trouble just to be ‘honest.’ Do you?”
    “Then what is it? What’s making you act out like this when your whole family is trying to help you? Don’t you understand that your dad is pulling all his lovely hair out over you?”
    “I don’t know if he is,” she muttered, biting hard on her bottom lip, looking away.
    Abigail blinked. “I’m sorry, what?”
    “If he is my dad.”
    Why were the McNamaras telling her all their deep, dark secrets? Was it her face? Did she just have one of those faces that encouraged people to spill their shit? “Why on earth would you think that?”
    “I was with Nana and Grandpa Ellis in June for the weekend. And I went downstairs for some water because Nana always uses that stupid Yardley room spray that makes my throat dry. And I heard them. Talking about it. That my dad knew and he was avoiding it because he knew it was true. I’m not his. And he’s not mine.” Her eyes met Abigail’s and she burst into tears. Abigail circled the desk and put her arms around the sobbing girl. Now it made sense. The rage, the disappointment, the hurt, the desperate need for someone to see her pain. She’d said Leila was acting out for attention. Now she had it.
    “Have you told your dad this?”
    “No!” she cried. “Course not! First he’d go down to Nana and Grandpa Ellis and kill them. And he wouldn’t do anything else. Because it proves my mum was a cheat. And he looks at me and he knows. He just thinks I’m like her.”
    No way Abigail was equipped to deal with this. She really should call Liam and Sheila for them to deal with it. All right, think practically. As if Leila was one of your friends. “Tell him. Talk to him. He’s loved you for every second of your life since the minute your mum found out she was pregnant, I know. No, no, no. I know. He will always love you. So go home and talk to him and you can come up with a plan together. Because that way, rather than it being you versus him, it’s you two versus the world. And that’s how it should be.”
    Leila held her tighter, her sobs increasing once more. All Abigail could do was hold her until the crying subsided. “Better?” Abigail asked, grabbing the box and waving it under the girl’s dripping nose.
    She nodded. “Thank you. I really am sorry about your shop.”
    “Apology accepted.”
    “You didn’t have to be nice to me.”
    Abigail shrugged. “You caught me on a good day.”
    She disagreed. “You’re always nice.”
    Was she? “Thank you. Come on, let me give you back to your granny. Before she thinks I’ve basted you for roasting.”
    “Can I have one of