She glances at Jess, but her little sister is sitting cross-legged next to the fire in the living room, looking at her new Jackie annual, and does not raise her head to reply.

“OK. Well, if either of you want to come downstairs and give me a hand peeling potatoes or preparing the sprouts, you know where I’ll be.”

Her mum’s voice sounds strange, as though someone has flattened it with an iron and put it in a box for safekeeping. She glances between Lily and Jess as if searching for something, before turning and leaving the room, her slippered feet padding down to the basement kitchen.

Lily grabs a bin liner and starts tidying up the wrapping paper that litters the sitting room floor. From downstairs she hears the opening bars of “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” on the radio and her eyes smart with her mum’s efforts to pretend that this Christmas is like any other, even though they all know it bears no resemblance to normality.

It is thirteen weeks and five days since her dad committed suicide. Sometimes Lily still wakes in the morning to a brief spell of amnesia before remembering what has happened, and the realization is like someone scooping out her insides and dumping them unceremoniously on the floor all over again.

“Are you going to help tidy up, Jess?”

Her sister’s eyes remain glued to the magazine resting on her knees.

“Jess, will you help? Or you could go downstairs and give Mum a hand?”

Jess says nothing, does not even turn to look at Lily. It is as though Lily has not spoken, does not exist.

Jess has been like this ever since it happened. For months she has been cold, abrupt, aloof, as though she cannot stand being in the same room as Lily. Lily understands that her little sister is grieving but she cannot help feeling resentful that Jess doesn’t seem to care that she is not the only one in mourning. Every time Lily enters a room, Jess becomes tense, rude, monosyllabic, and Lily doesn’t know what she has done to warrant Jess’s hatred, but she knows that it seems trivial to make a fuss about it. Ever since the events of the summer, Lily has felt as though her family is held together by spider silk and that one strong gust of wind will blow them all apart forever.

She hears the whisper of a page turning and stands behind her little sister, looking down at her slim shoulders hunched over the magazine. She cannot imagine what Jess has been through, cannot adequately put herself in her little sister’s shoes to know how the events of the summer have affected her. The thought of all that has happened melts her irritation and she crouches beside Jess, feels her voice molding into something warm and comforting. “Jess, I know it’s hard today. I know it doesn’t really feel like Christmas, but it’ll get easier in time, I promise.”