‘I …’ I hesitate. It has crossed my mind. Joe slickly glossed over it. Why would two people go down when one could? he says simply. But Frannie has kept her counsel on that particular issue, right up to now.

‘The truth is that I’m only just opening the windows,’ Frannie says. She looks at Cathy, a small smile of disbelief on her face. ‘You know? I had to deal with one trauma before the other.’

I nod. The windows are the perfect metaphor. ‘I know.’

We sit in silence for a few seconds, sipping the too-hot tea, not quite sure where to go next.

‘I wonder … I don’t know. I think what happened with Rosie made us, me and Joe … I don’t know.’

Frannie is nodding quickly. ‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘I know. I’ve had enough therapy to know.’

Something lifts in my heart, even within the tragedy. A kind of space, enough to let in the light. We don’t need to go over it. The past, our actions. We don’t need to validate the others’ pain. It hangs unsaid, in the air between us, where it needs to be.

‘To call your siblings when you’ve fucked up,’ Frannie says. ‘I don’t know. That’s kind of childish. Isn’t it? To want your family to bail you out. And I was still the baby. Still a kid.’

‘You were the baby of the family because we liked you that way,’ I say. ‘Loved you that way,’ I add softly. ‘We needed a baby of the family, because we lost one. We needed you. We babied you.’

‘Yeah. But I’m not Rosie.’ Frannie’s voice is warm, her eyes crinkled. ‘You have to sometimes move on. You know? Into adulthood. Away from the flowerpot you grew up in together.’

‘I know,’ I say. Maybe we won’t live in the same row of houses together. Maybe we won’t work together. Family’s complicated, isn’t it? I go to ask for her view, for Joe’s view, on my part in Rosie’s death, and if it contributed to my slight distance from them, but then stop myself. I don’t need to. What I believe is what matters. And I believe it wasn’t my fault. That, even if it were, I’ve got to stop paying for it, or we’ll all lose another life too.

‘And thanks,’ Frannie adds softly to me. ‘I owe you and Joe …’ She touches a hand to her chest. Her breasts are ample and full again, womanly. ‘Everything.’

‘It was nothing,’ I whisper.

I scoot closer to Frannie on the bed and hold her to me, my head resting on top of hers. I feel my chest become damp with her tears, thankful tears, regretful tears. Tears of relief too maybe.

‘We love you,’ I say to her, right in her ear. She nods quickly against my ribs.

‘I know you think I should do the right thing,’ she says. I say nothing in reply; I don’t. ‘But I just can’t leave Paul. I just – I know what the right thing to do is but I just … I can’t bring myself to do it.’ She shrugs, the motion a heavier movement than it used to be. ‘It’s so easy to say you would do the right thing,’ she says, rubbing at her nose. She puts down her tea on the bed, where it wobbles precariously.