Leaning forward to retrieve a bottle of water from her hand luggage, a sharp pain stabbed behind her sternum. She tried not to wince, tried to stop the discomfort writing itself onto her face. She couldn’t let them know how much pain she was in. For weeks she’d been falsely reassuring them that her symptoms were stabilizing, that she was plateauing rather than declining. She’d insisted, time and again, that she was definitely well enough to go on this trip. If they knew how much her health had deteriorated over the past three weeks, they’d never have agreed to get on the plane with her.

Looking up, expecting to see her own anxiety reflected back at her in her daughters’ faces, she was instead met by the backs of their heads. She rubbed a hand against the bony wall of her chest, breathed slowly, and turned to look out of the window.

Ahead of her she saw the trees of Central Park but before she’d had a chance to absorb the sight, the cab swerved into the main entrance of the Plaza Hotel, the car door opened, and a man in a navy blue uniform—complete with peaked cap—welcomed her to New York. As Audrey stepped out of the cab and onto the checkerboard concourse, she tried to focus on all the things she might be able to say and do over the next few days to bring her daughters back together.

Fixing her family: it was the only thing that mattered. And Audrey had five days in which to achieve it.

Chapter 51

Lily

Eighteen blocks and fifteen minutes later, on a road running perpendicular to Central Park, Lily stepped out of a cab. Humidity enveloped her like a thermal blanket she was unable to shrug off. Her mum had tried to persuade her against going straight to Daniel’s apartment—had suggested she settle in at the hotel and freshen up first—but Lily hadn’t wanted to waste any time.

The house in front of her looked just like the photo Daniel had sent: steps climbing up to a wide front door, black railings on either side, a redbrick building nestled between two elegant cream town houses.

Lily pulled out her compact, pressed some powder onto her nose, reapplied her dark red lipstick. She felt girlish almost, like a teenager arriving for a first date. She instructed herself not to be silly, reminded herself that this was Daniel, her husband of eighteen years, and she was turning up in New York to surprise him. It was, she thought, exactly what their relationship needed: spontaneity, excitement, a reordering of priorities.

She walked up the steps, reached the glass door, looked at the list of names next to the buzzers—Cohen, Harris, Garcia, Perez. Goldsmith was about halfway down, innocuously typed, nothing to suggest that Daniel was a temporary guest of the city.

Later Lily would not be able to explain what had made her finger hover above the buzzer, would not know what had caused her to hesitate as though the scene had been paused by an invisible third party. She would not know what had prompted her to press her face to the glass door, cup her hands around her eyes to shut out the light and peer into the building’s lobby like a Peeping Tom. None of these things Lily would ever be able to explain beyond the slippery answer that somewhere, deep down, she must have known.