I can’t believe what I’m saying. But then, people change, don’t they? Learn from their mistakes? Feel remorse? What do I know about losing a sister, what that does to a person? I know what losing a best friend is like, so how much worse must it have been for Catherine and her parents? What must it have been like in the Dawson home in the weeks and months following Alice’s death? Besides, if I turf her out, what will Ross’s colleagues think? He’ll hate it if I cause a scene, especially in front of Gloria Williams.

I stand up, and so does she. For one dreadful second I think she’s going to step forward and embrace me, but if that’s what she contemplated doing, she quickly changes her mind and moves toward the door instead. She pauses at the threshold.

“Thank you,” she whispers.

I watch her leave the room, unable to follow her, unable to move. My past has caught up with me, like I always knew it would. All this time I’ve been living on a fault line. Now, finally, something inside me cracks and shifts.

15

It’s nearly one o’clock in the morning and the last of the guests left half an hour ago. In different circumstances, Ross’s medical-school pals would probably still be here and I’d be tucked up in bed already, but they, like his colleagues, must have sensed the need to leave us to it.

The house that just five hours ago looked so pretty and inviting, so warm and glowing, is now littered with empty glasses and paper plates. I can barely look at the stained walls in the hallway, that lovely Mindful Gray now more like something out of a crime scene.

Ross is chewing the inside of his bottom lip. He takes a deep breath through his nostrils and leans forward in the armchair, arms crossed over his knees. He looks shattered.

“Lizzie, why didn’t you tell me any of this?”

I’m curled up on the end of the sofa, my hands clasped round a mug of chamomile tea. A headache throbs at my left temple.

“I was going to tell you. It just never seemed to be the right time.”

“It must have been horrendous, seeing that happen to your best friend.”

“I didn’t see it happen. By the time I came to, it was over. All I saw was…” I close my eyes till the image goes away.

Ross shakes his head. “I can’t believe you’ve been dealing with all that trauma and I never even knew.”