Jess studied the face of the brother-in-law she’d never met. He was exactly how she imagined a hot-shot entertainment lawyer to be: arrogantly handsome, oozing the kind of self-confidence that only extreme wealth and constant admiration could bring. Phoebe was pretty in the haughty, disinterested way that screamed of teenage entitlement, and there was something familiar about her that made Jess swipe through the other photographs, her finger jabbing at the right-hand arrow, propelling her through images she’d seen dozens of times before: the ebony grand piano gleaming in sunlight that streamed through floor-to-ceiling windows; the kitchen with its white bespoke units, shiny butler sink, white-painted floorboards, and wall of glass leading onto a manicured garden beyond; Lily’s study, empty but for a stark metal desk, a MacBook, and a mobile phone. All so neat, all so clean and bright, as though Lily had whitewashed her past with a spotless designer home.

Jess thought about her own house in comparison: the tattered brown sofa she’d bought secondhand sixteen years ago and had never been able to replace. The cheap melamine kitchen cupboards sporting wonky hinges and peeling edges, their multiple chips like battle scars. The small round table that just about accommodated three people as long as you breathed in when someone wanted to pass behind you. The mortgage payments she feared, every month, she might not be able to meet.

She tried to imagine what her sister’s life must be like: a carousel of dinner parties, cocktail parties, awards ceremonies, celebrity encounters. A diary filled months in advance with Saturday night plans, Sunday brunches, exotic holidays and, no doubt, an endless supply of friends to suit every occasion. Jess couldn’t remember the last time she’d gone out on a Friday or Saturday night, couldn’t remember the last time she’d had anyone around for dinner other than her mum. There always seemed to be more pressing things clamoring for her attention: washing and ironing, sourcing the next freelance job, preparing her accounts, helping Mia with her homework.

As Jess stared at the photograph of Lily sitting at her desk—the face so familiar yet so unknown—she was aware of her breath becoming shallow, of something lodging in her throat. She found herself thinking back to the day, almost three decades ago, when they had seen one another at their dad’s grave on the first anniversary of his death. Jess had sneaked out of school in her lunch hour only to find Lily already kneeling by his headstone, crocodile tears streaking her cheeks. Jess had screamed at Lily that day, words she had forgotten the moment they’d erupted from her lips. She had been so filled with fury and bile that it hadn’t been the words themselves that had mattered but the violence with which she’d delivered them. Now all she remembered about that gray September day was the feeling of ferocious certainty that Lily didn’t deserve to be there. After what Lily had done, she had forfeited the right to weep at their father’s grave.