“You never cared before.” The words are stony. They have to be, to force their way through the tight hard line of her mouth. It’s the same resentment, that same issue every time: that I left, without a backward glance. I’ve been tiptoeing around it. I’ve been handling her with kid gloves, and suddenly I’m tired of it. Maybe she’ll never get over it. Maybe we’ll never be anything more than distant siblings. And if that’s the case, we might as well have this fight now.

“All right then,” I challenge her. “Let’s talk about that. I was eighteen and I left for university. What would you have had me do? Stay at home until you were eighteen and ready to leave yourself?”

“You could have come home at holidays! You could have called! You could have come to my concerts and plays, like you used to!”

“Concert and plays? I was trying to start my own life. I wasn’t your parent, Carrie. That wasn’t my job.” I hear my own words, the harshness of them, but I’m no longer interested in sugarcoating.

“You don’t get it. That’s what you were like to me. Mum was—well, Mum was Mum, but you were always there. And then you weren’t.” She turns her head away, but not before I see the teardrop suspended from one of her eyelashes.

“You don’t get it either, Carrie.” My throat is tight now. Her tears have done that. “It seemed to me that you had everything; what did you need me for? You had Pete, and Mum was so much more involved with you than she ever was with me.” It never occurred to me that Carrie could have felt neglected by Karen too. Maybe our mothers weren’t as different as I thought. “I felt . . . I felt so jealous sometimes of the attention she gave you.” I feel mean even admitting it now, just as I felt small and mean at the time. What kind of person is jealous of the love given to a child?

Carrie glances at me, simultaneously dashing a hand at one eye. “Really? She must have been pretty bloody absent with you then.”

“Well, yes,” I say ruefully. “She really was.” And suddenly we are both laughing, though her eyes are overbright, and I suspect mine may be too. I take advantage of the moment to shift the focus. “About Fiona, I’m just . . . I’m worried for you, is all. I can’t promise to like her, but I promise I’ll be civil. Maybe even friendly.” For Carrie, I will absolutely try. For all that she is the reason I’m here, it has still taken me aback how much I don’t want her to leave. I must be growing accustomed to our rhythm.

Her lips begin to curl. “Well. Best not overpromise.”

“True. Civil it is.”