I had my hand on the door when George’s chatter abruptly stopped. A chair scraped and I hesitated for a split second before turning my head to see Dom already halfway across the kitchen.

‘Good morning. Here, let me give you a hand.’

And there was the very person I’d been avoiding for sixteen years, two months, three weeks and two days.

Lou looked awkward, which, to be fair, was understandable with one and a half legs out of action. She was leaning into the doorframe on her crutches, with her weight on her bandaged leg. The other leg, in the cast, hovered slightly off the floor and out in front. It looked like the only part of my sister’s body that had somewhere to go.

Dom gently steered her across the room like the good doctor that he is and supported her as she lowered down into a chair. George shot under the table and emerged with a low wooden stool, which he slid over in front of Lou, and Wolfie carefully lifted the cast and placed it on top. There was no consultation between any of them, but with that level of efficiency it was clear it wasn’t the first time they’d done it.

I was still frozen to the spot with my body twisted at a weird angle, my coffee mug burning into my fingers, and a slow dawning realisation that while I’d secretly been congratulating myself on evading them, Dom and George had already gone and wrapped their arms around my sister and her girl. I pressed my knuckles harder into the pain for a few seconds more, then turned around.

It felt like all the background noise had been sucked out of the room as Lou and I held each other’s gaze. In my head I said her name. Lou. Lou. From my mouth came the only thing I could be certain I wouldn’t make a mess of.

‘Coffee?’

‘Thanks, Danny, that’d be great.’

I made her a cappuccino, catching snippets of conversation as I frothed the milk for much longer than it needed. George articulately argued his right to wear his choice of socks with his uniform (Buzz, of course, and totally illegal at his posh school), and Dom asked a few polite questions of Lou, which I had a feeling were mostly for my benefit. But while I appreciated the attempts to kickstart a conversation I wasn’t brave enough to have myself, I just wasn’t up to it. Sorry, Dom. I was barely up to a cappuccino. I listened though, while Lou offered mostly single-word answers to his questions. There was a yes, a no and a sometimes. All we needed was a maybe for the full house.

Can I do this? Maybe.

I added another shot of coffee to my own untouched mug and stepped out of the back door, not even bothering to pretend any more. The zombie apocalypse of memories I’d been trying so hard to escape for the past two nights (pillow over my head, channelling Dr Spooner) was hard on my heels. Chronological flashes of a tiny pink-faced interloper who’d had me at hello. Of a pudgy laughing toddler who knew how to stick like glue. Of a girl who stayed up half the night to decorate a super-sized birthday cake in the shape of a cricket bat.