Tom didn’t say, That’s a random question, or Where’s this going, then? He just said, “Yes, I remember. She kept getting wet clay all over everything and driving your dad round the bend. Didn’t she block the bathroom sink?”

“That’s right. We were having that New Year’s Eve party. We had to get an emergency plumber.”

“I couldn’t forget that.”

His laughter made me smile.

“She was really keen,” I said, “but Dad put her off. Told her she’d never be any good.”

I think Tom sighed again; the line blurred.

“My dad’s not always the most sensitive when it comes to things like that, is he?”

A brief hesitation and: “No, he’s not, but still . . . I don’t think blaming him for what happened . . .”

“Oh, no!” I sat up straighter. “I don’t!”

Although I suppose I used to, just a little. I used to blame myself most of all, and then Stella herself, and then Dad—but that was before Cory absolved us all by turning out to be a monster. I picked one of the pictures off the pile and peered at it, but it was too dark to make much out.

“If anyone’s to blame, it’s me,” said Tom.

“You? Why would you say that?” I tossed the picture back onto the pile. “What do you mean?”

The line crackled as he let out another sigh.

“Did . . . ?” he began. “Did Stella ever tell you . . . ? No, I can’t imagine she did.”

“What?”

“She asked me to go with her.”

“She . . . ?”

“A day or two before she left for the last time—a couple of months before she died—she came to see me one evening and asked me to run away with her. Just like that; straight out of the blue.”

“What did you say?”

“I said no. I told her not to be daft, and she got all huffy and said, ‘Plenty of people I know would give their eyeteeth to be propositioned by me.’ So then I went and laughed, didn’t I? Which was completely the wrong thing to do, because she got upset and stormed off, and then . . . that was it. That was the last conversation we ever had.”

“I didn’t know.”

I almost said, So you mean you weren’t in love with her? but it felt like an unsubtle question in the context of our conversation—like an unfair accusation, or a demand for clarity where there was none to be had.

We were quiet again, and this time I couldn’t picture Tom’s expression. I thought of asking him to go to the nearest mirror and describe his face to me in minute detail—from the turn of his lips to the furrow between his eyebrows.