The thought of enduring Christmas sober, of the pantomime my family would stage every time a cork popped, was horrific. Amber laughed, but not in a mean way.

‘So you just need to swap them over, right? Knock three grand off your overdraft and make your Tinder profile truthful?’

‘Exactly,’ I said, grateful for that incredible talent she had for breaking the tension.

‘And what about your parents? Where do they fit into this charming nativity scene?’

‘I catch them staring at me, when we’re all chinking our glasses. Then they look away, like I won’t see the pity. Like I won’t see them silently asking themselves why I went so wrong. It’s like I was a discount item in the sales and now they wish they could swap me for the full-price version.’

‘Maybe you’re not the one who needs pitying!’ shot back Amber. ‘From what you’ve told me, you’re the only authentic person in the picture you’re painting.’

Unease began to creep up my spine. I shouldn’t have told her. It was meant to stay inside the picture, not seep out of the frame and into the world where it could stain us all.

‘Not Sophie,’ I said. ‘She doesn’t even know.’ Sophie was everyone’s favourite Christmas present. Pristine, unbroken. That was why we fought over her so fiercely.

‘But you do.’ My head was bowed, but I could feel Amber’s eyes trained on me. ‘I know it’s hard to talk about, but a part of you brought it here. When one part of us fights another, it can paralyze us.’ Tears prickled behind my eyes. ‘Let’s try to make a step forward together, take a look.’

‘I don’t know…’

‘Rachel, if these secrets are left to fester, they just find ways to repeat. Families play out their traumas again and again, the same pain rippling through the generations. Personally, I think they move through the ages, but not everyone believes in past lives.’

‘Past lives?’ I said, thrown.

Amber’s eyes were blazing, her focus on me absolute. ‘Don’t think about that right now,’ she said. ‘Let’s just try to set you free in this incarnation.’

‘Okay,’ I said, two whispered syllables.

‘What would that part of you say to me if it could speak? What would it say about Esther?’

It felt dangerous, her name in somebody else’s mouth.

‘I hate her,’ I said, my heart drumming in my chest. ‘I know I’m meant to be a feminist and I should just blame Dad, but I feel like she came into our house and destroyed everything. And somehow she still won’t fuck off.’

Was it disgust that crossed Amber’s face? To me – in my flayed and vulnerable state – it felt like a slap.