She heard questions trailing after her as she negotiated her way through the avenue of tables until she was out on Kensington High Street, the February chill numbing her cheeks. All around her people hurried to shops, bars, and restaurants as Lily stumbled forward, willing her pulse to slow down.

Turning a corner onto a quieter street, she wished she could teleport herself home and that, when she got there, things would have changed, decisions been reversed, life restored to some semblance of normality. But as she leaned against a wall and closed her eyes, it wasn’t the hallway of the home she shared with Daniel and Phoebe that loomed into view. Instead, she was greeted by a scene she had tried so hard over the years to delete from her memory, a scene that occupied so many of her dreams in spite of her determination to erase it, as though the harder she willed it away the more fiercely it returned: following her sister down the stairs, praying that Jess would not suddenly find the courage to insist on going into the spare bedroom after all, willing Jess not to turn around and see the tears in her eyes.

Lily waited until the panic began to subside and then hailed a cab, stepped inside its warm blast of air and gave the driver her address.

All she wanted was to be at home.

Walking through the wide, glossy black front door, Lily was greeted by a sight she wasn’t expecting to see. “Daniel? Where are you? What’s going on?”

From Daniel’s study farther down the hallway she heard the sound of a phone call ending and the squeak of his office chair. As he emerged and walked along the black-and-white tiled floor toward her, she registered the effort he was making to appear normal.

“You’re back early. What happened to afternoon drinks with the school mums?”

“I didn’t feel well so I didn’t stay. Why are your bags in the hallway already? You’re not leaving until tomorrow.”

Daniel’s eyes flicked from left to right before landing on the collection of suitcases gathered by the front door. “I had to change my flight. They’ve organized a partners’ dinner for tomorrow night and it was going to be too tight if I didn’t fly until the morning. I texted earlier to tell you, just after you left for the gym. I figured your phone must be out of battery.”

Lily’s fingers squeezed around the phone in her pocket which hadn’t run out of battery until her cab journey home. “I didn’t get a message from you. I’d have come straight home if I had. When are you leaving?”

A light rash stippled Daniel’s cheeks as he glanced down at his watch. “The cab will be here in about ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes? You were going to leave without saying goodbye?” Lily thought about the interminable hour of school-mum chat she’d just endured, all the time waiting to see if her phone would ring, to see if Daniel would call to tell her he’d changed his mind.