“Daddy?” she said at last, hearing and barely recognizing her own voice. “Daddy, would you phone me? It’s quite important, Daddy, it really is. It—”

“Hello?” The machine clicked off as a voice broke into her message. Tom’s voice. “Is that you, Lulu?” he asked. “I was just passing through the kitchen. What’s up?”

“What’s up?” “The sky.” Sophie, aged five, prone on her back in a blue summer dress in the grass, convulsed with hilarity at the cleverness of it all.

“Sophie’s dying,” she said. No, that could not be right. Sophie could not be dying. Sophie was too irritating to die. “She had an allergic reaction to something, and we’re waiting to see if she’ll make it. Do you know where my parents are? Both of their mobile phones have gone dead.”

“I’ll find a way to track them down,” he said. Something in his voice had changed: it had become sharper, and somehow firmer. “Sit tight and wait. Which hospital are you at? I’ll be there in under an hour.”

We are not whole without her, the letter had said, and never shall be. We are a family of cripples who have lost a part of us that was more precious than any ordinary limb. If I could have my Beth back for only a day I’d trade places with blind, maimed Billy for life and think myself the richer for it.

“I’m going to kill her,” said Lulu, biting at her thumb while Jamie fidgeted, Matthew paced, and Emma sat staring silently into space. “If she pulls through, I’m going to kill her for what we’re going through now.”

“Don’t make jokes,” said Emma. “Not about this.”

But what was she supposed to do? thought Lulu. Sit quietly as Emma was, and contemplate, seriously, a life without Sophie? A family of two sisters where once there were three? Photographs on the kitchen wall without a person attached, an empty chair at Thanksgiving? No, there could not be an empty chair at Thanksgiving, it was only days away; it was impossible that life could change so unimaginably and so soon.

“Hi.” The door to the waiting room opened, and there was Tom, looking rumpled and carrying a battered Marks & Spencer’s bag. Lulu astonished herself by flinging herself on him like a child.

“It’s okay,” he told her, patting her a little awkwardly. “Okay, now, it’s okay.”

He did not, she somehow noted gratefully, tell her that it was going to be okay. Because, of course, it so very well may not be.

“I made some telephone calls,” he said, sitting on a chair. “Good news is I’ve tracked down Fee and David’s hotel—I did some detective work on the Internet and found his assistant, Jenny. Not such good news is there’s a storm in Washington right now and the hotel seems to be having a power outage. No idea when it’ll be back on, but Jenny’s calling them every twenty minutes, and as soon as she gets through, she’ll have David call Emma. Which leaves us with you guys.” He looked around at all four of them. “Have any of you eaten?”