‘Do you love her?’ It’s the only other thing I need to know right now.

‘I thought I did.’ He looks stricken as he says this but I am glad he has. If he had just taken comfort in another body without caring I think it would hurt more. The fact I wasn’t enough for him – that anyone else could have done. Knowing he had real feelings makes it at least understandable if not forgivable.

‘And now?’

‘What I feel for Francesca is… something. But it’s not even close to love. Leah, when I saw you carried out of the tunnel, barely conscious and bleeding…’ He takes a moment to compose himself. ‘During the hours I sat in the waiting room while you were in surgery, I had so much time to contemplate life without you. The future looked so bleak but the future I kept imagining – if the worst did happen and you didn’t make it – was always me and Archie. Never with her.’ He reaches for my hand again and this time I let him take it, although when he squeezes I don’t squeeze back.

‘I don’t know what to say to you. It’s such a lot to process.’

‘I know, but I can promise you, Leah, that I know I’ve been an idiot and nothing like this will ever happen again. You and Archie—’

‘I’m going to go to Mulberry and we can sort the rest out when I’m back.’ I don’t say home. I can’t. Home suddenly feels house-of-cards precarious. On the brink of collapse.

He nods. There is nothing more to say yet. The difficult conversations will come later. He presses his lips against mine. They are dry and his breath smells of coffee. He walks away and my heart is breaking.

It feels like the end and the beginning of something all at once.

Chapter Eighty

Leah

Now

My clothes are as dark as my mood as I reluctantly dress for Marie’s funeral. Today I am burying my twin; the other half of me who I had always thought, despite her drinking, to be lighter, happier. I hadn’t known then her endless what happened made us into the people we are today and it wasn’t as bad as we thought, was it? wasn’t the outlook of a more optimistic person than me, but a desperate need to be absolved of blame, freed from the terrible guilt she carried.

‘Let me help you with that.’ My caseworker at Mulberry fastens the buttons on my dress that my shaking fingers can’t quite manage. ‘Your husband is waiting for you in reception. He’s bringing you back afterwards?’

‘Yes.’ My voice is hoarse with the tears I have already shed this morning.

‘Are you sure you’re up to it, Leah?’

This I don’t answer. I’m not up to it. Is anyone ever ready to let go of someone they love?

George doesn’t ask if I’m okay. He knows I’m not. We don’t talk on the way to the church, my head is too full of worries for words. Should I have let Archie come even though he’s only four and barely knew his aunt? Should I have travelled in the procession behind the hearse? Endlessly I think of Carly. Where is she? Is she okay?