“I can do that later. But right now, all I want is for you two to start talking again, for you two . . .”

The thought got trapped, halfway formed: that there would come a time, very soon, when what mattered was not Audrey’s relationship with her daughters but, in her absence, her daughters’ relationship with each other.

“I just want you two to be sisters again. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. Can you try and do that for me? Please?”

Chapter 63

Jess

Running into the lobby of the Plaza Hotel, her thoughts sprinting ahead of her, Jess heard a man’s voice call her name. She turned to see who it was.

“Hey, Jess. Is everything all right?”

It took Jess a few moments to place him, not because she didn’t recognize him but because she hadn’t expected to see him there. She hadn’t, in truth, expected to see him ever again.

“Ben? What are you doing here?”

“Do you mean here in New York or here at the Plaza? I’ve moved back here now—didn’t your mom mention it? She was the catalyst, if I’m honest. I said I’d meet her for a quick drink this evening. Do you know where she is?”

Jess thought about her mum sitting in the park and about how, just a few minutes before, she had watched the past change before her eyes. And before she knew it was going to happen, she burst into tears.

“What’s wrong? What’s happened? Audrey’s OK, isn’t she?”

Jess managed to nod, her head heavy with confessions, uncertain what she was supposed to do with them all.

“So what’s the matter?”

She felt Ben’s hand on her shoulder, and suddenly the afternoon’s events were spilling out of her mouth. As Ben led her to a sofa in the corner of the lobby she told him about her terrible misunderstanding, her false accusation, the needless family rupture she had caused. He listened without interrupting as she described a twenty-eight-year estrangement that now made her feel physically sick with shame and regret. And what surprised Jess was not that she was pouring out her confession to a man she barely knew but how very easy it was to confide in him.

“So, you see, I’ve ruined my entire family because of a misunderstanding when I was ten years old. That’s all it was—a misunderstanding. All this time I’ve been angry with Lily when she’d done nothing wrong.”

Jess thought about batting away her mum’s arm as it had reached out toward her. Her mum so frail where once she had been strong. This, the first afternoon of a trip that was supposed to have plugged the gap of her mum’s disappointments, but had instead shattered what small pretense of stability they had left. She couldn’t tell Ben about what her mum had done, however deep her desire to confide in someone: even in the heat of her anger, she knew it would be too great a betrayal.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. You were just a child. God, it’s difficult enough making sense of life and death when you’re an adult. You can’t possibly be expected to understand it when you’re ten. And losing a twin—I can’t even begin to imagine how hard that must have been. It’s only natural you’d want to find someone to blame.”