But she would need boots and something waterproof—she has not packed the right clothes.

She wonders how quickly she can get away—whether she can take the train back to London on Boxing Day. She checks the services, but they are few and expensive, and she already has a ticket for the twenty-seventh. Two more days. Two more days to bear.

She thinks of the books she read as a child—all those maiden aunts, the illustrations showing the glasses and whiskers and good humor and cheer. Always in chairs. Always in the corner. She used to be in the center of things. She is an edge dweller now.

She is aware that there are different, competing Hannahs within her: the polite Hannah, the good Hannah, Auntie Hannah, who is happy with the invitations to stay, who smiles and sits quietly, and parcels up her pain. And the bad Hannah, who is capable of poison, of madness—the one who wants to stand up, to upend the table, to take the baby and run away with her, to claim what should have been hers. To scream, It should have been me.

It should have been me!

It should have fucking been me.

Lissa

THERE IS A HOMEMADE WREATH HUNG ON THE FRONT DOOR; woven willow studded with mistletoe and holly, taken from the bush in the garden. Lissa lifts the knocker and lets it fall. Sarah answers the door in her apron and takes Lissa’s face in her hands, that smell of turpentine and spices. “Happy Christmas, darling.”

“And to you.”

Lissa has brought gifts: a mug, speckled with a brown glaze like freckles, two beautiful new pencils, and a vase to keep them in. Sarah coos and smiles and is pleased. Lissa opens her gift from her mother: a scarf, hand-knitted in fine green wool. “It’s beautiful, Mum,” she says. And it is.

Sarah has made food—seasonal but not traditional, something she excels at, that she invests with an almost moral purpose. When Lissa was small, she used to feel cheated by the lack of tree—a Victorian invention—the absence of chocolate, of all the tinselly baubled nonsense her friends’ homes were filled with. But now the times have caught up with Sarah, and each corner of the house contains something beautiful: leaves salvaged from walks on the Heath, a table decoration made from raffia and twine. Small glass bulbs are suspended over the table. Candles stand ready to be lit.

Lissa sits in the low armchair; Ruby pads over towards her, and she lifts her onto her lap. They drink wine mulled with cloves and cinnamon and star anise. “So tell me, any more meetings?” says Sarah from the stove.

“One. For Salisbury.”

“Oh darling, that’s great. Any luck?”

“No.” Her agent had called her, apologetic. You’re just not quite what they were looking for.