At the entrance to their flat, Freya stopped and breathed in. Unmistakably, there was the smell of Elizabeth Arden perfume. And homemade ginger cake. The source of both scents ran out from the living room with Brian behind, then Jess. They gathered Freya into their arms. Heather kissed her all over her face, Brian cried almost as much as Jess, and Paul was sucked into their messy, teary huddle too.

Steph found herself hanging back. She watched her family and imagined, in different circumstances, two extra people: her mum and her cousin. Alive and free, driving each other mad, but with nothing huge to forgive or be forgiven for. Would her mum and Heather have got on? Would her cousin have become Freya’s Auntie Bec? What was the use in wondering?

Freya turned to look for her, and Paul held out his arm to bring her into the fold. Steph shook off her sadness and stepped toward them. This was another moment that shouldn’t be tainted, another outbreak of joy before the process of putting their lives back together had to begin.

—

That night, Steph climbed the attic stairs. Halfway up she paused and looked down, seeing Paul through the living-room door, in his usual armchair wearing his suede slippers. How quickly they’d rediscovered their routines: their places in front of the TV and round the table, Freya’s favorite cheesy pasta for dinner. Ordinary things made extraordinarily precious.

Paul glanced up and saw her watching him. He smiled, and Steph’s stomach fluttered with love, and gratitude, and residual guilt. While they’d been staying near the hospital, they’d talked and talked about their lives as other people. Yet there was still that one part of her own story she hadn’t shared and probably never would. It wasn’t a chapter, not even a page, only a paragraph, a line. But it was the axis upon which the story spun. The two extra pills that might have made the difference between Nick living and dying.

She pointed to indicate that she was going to check on Freya. Paul nodded, and Steph tiptoed up the last few wooden stairs to knock on her daughter’s door. Still part of her expected a furious “Leave me alone!” but Freya invited her in. Steph paused a beat to appreciate, again, the miraculous fact that her daughter was back where she belonged.

The room was warmly lit by the bedside lamp. Freya was in bed cocooned by pillows. As she took her earbuds out of her ears, the murmur of a Harry Potter audio book seeped from them. Steph glanced at Freya’s other books, her Agatha Christies and Conan Doyles, and thought about her daughter playing detective, emulating her dad or her favorite characters, but going to extreme lengths. Blackmailing her driving instructor, behaving in unrecognizable ways. Why didn’t you just ask me, Frey?

But why hadn’t Steph asked her if anything was wrong?