Lily eyed her brother steadily from the doorway, perfectly aware that, for reasons neither of them would go into that minute, things were very far from being okay. ‘It will all work out, you know, in the end. Nil desperandum.’

‘Whatever the fuck that means,’ Dylan muttered, getting out of bed and slinging a towel, plucked from the floor, over his shoulder.

‘Hey, just be nice today, okay?’ Lily wagged a jokey finger, and her brother’s expression softened.

‘It’s all shite, but yeah. Of course. Dad’s extra wound up because I smoked some weed.’

‘Not smart.’

‘That’s me.’ He widened his eyes, flicking the towel at her before disappearing into the shower adjoining his bedroom. ‘Hey, don’t eat all the muffins,’ he shouted, before his voice was drowned by the sound of pounding water.

9

Looking round the lunch table, dappled by the chinks of sunlight finding a way through the restaurant’s fleet of vast canvas umbrellas, Esther had to pinch herself. Lucas was talking wine with her father; Lily was nobly explaining synthetic biology, the subject of her thesis, to her goggle-eyed grandmother; while Matteo and Dylan were engrossed in one of their exchanges of music must-listens. Dessert plates had been scraped clean and empty wine glasses pushed aside to make room for coffee cups, apart from Matteo and Lily, who had opted to share a pot of ginger tea. They looked like any old family on a day out, Esther marvelled. They were a family on a day out, riven and scarred, but reassembled and performing as their best selves in honour of Lily. To the outside world – the waiters, the other diners – the cracks were invisible, and this felt integral to what she recognised as a burgeoning sense of triumph.

‘But, Dad, we had loads of picnics when we were kids!’ Lily yelped, in response to a dry, teasing remark from Lucas about what a pleasant meal it had proved despite his personal dislike of eating outdoors. ‘And what about all those camping trips you made us go on, Exmoor, Northumberland…?’