Lucy wasn’t the only one wondering how much Michael had changed: none of us had visited him in prison. It should be no surprise to you that my invite got lost in the mail, but, maybe out of embarrassment, maybe out of shame, Michael hadn’t wanted visits from anyone. He’d decided to treat prison like a cocoon, hiding himself away. There had been some communication with a few members of the family, but never in person. Phone calls. Emails. I’m not sure if serving divorce papers by mail counts as writing letters, but if it does, he wrote some letters too. But contact was sparse. So his arrival was indeed momentous.

There was the crunch of the handbrake being pulled on. Then the engine cut out, the truck sighing onto its suspension, and there was just the whistle of the mountain wind. A crack of thunder would have added to the mood, but I promised not to lie. I noticed Michael’s truck had perfectly applied tyre chains.

Lucy primped her hair, checked her breath in her palm. My mother folded her arms.

The passenger-side door opened, and Michael got out.

Some of you will have just figured something out. But I’m going to let it sit.

After three years and change, I’ll admit I was expecting the desert-island version of my brother: wiry hair hanging down to his shoulders, a forest of a beard, and beady, nervous eyes: so this is civilisation. Instead, we got the opposite. He had longer hair, sure, but it was styled into a wave, and it was thick and full. Maybe even dyed. He must have had time to spruce up because he was clean-shaven. And while I was expecting extra lines of hardship somewhere in his brow, he had smooth skin, rosy cheeks and bright eyes. Maybe it was the snap of cold, or maybe prison, away from the elements, was an underrated skincare regime, but I was damned if he didn’t look younger than when he went away. The last time I’d seen him he’d been sitting in the dock, hunched, wearing a suit like it was a straitjacket. But here, he seemed refreshed. Resurrected.

In a black North Face down jacket over a button-up collared shirt, he looked like someone who’d paid to climb Everest. He took a deep breath of mountain air, savoured it and let out a wild ‘Cooee’. It echoed back across the valley.

‘Wow,’ he said. ‘Katherine, you’ve nailed the spot.’ He shook his head, hamming up how incredulous he was at the beauty of the place, or maybe he was genuine, I’m not sure. Then he made a beeline for my mother. I suppose I should start calling her ‘our mother’ now. Or maybe I should just call her ‘his mother’, and I should stick with ‘Audrey’.