“I always wanted a daughter. We tried for years after Sean was born but nothing happened and I thought it never would. When I got pregnant, I was convinced it would be another boy. For a few weeks, Greg even tried to talk me into an abortion—money was tight, there was no room for another baby, the house was too small. But I couldn’t and then she was born. She didn’t look like any of us. She was like a changeling child with blond fairy hair and dark eyes.

“I’ve never known a baby so quiet. Jack and Sean used to cry for hours, red-faced temper tantrums even as the tiniest of babies, but she slept through from only a few weeks old and barely cried at all.” She stops to take a breath and I pass her a glass of water, holding it steady when her hands shake.

“Everyone loved her—Greg, the boys, anyone who met her, and she was…she was mine in a way the boys never were. They had their football and rugby with Greg and I was just Mum who did their washing and cooked their tea. And when Greg insisted they go away to boarding school, they seemed even further out of my reach. But then I had my little girl who loved tea parties with her dolls and loved wearing pretty dresses and it seemed complete.” She stops talking and closes her eyes.

“And then you lost her,” I say, remembering Ellie, my pretend baby sister. There’s a lump in my throat and my voice is more of a whisper than hers.

“We should never have gone out that day—the roads were too icy.”

“It was an accident,” I say, words so many people have said to me over Bella’s death. Does it make Julia feel better to hear them? Did it ever make me feel better? No. Of course not.

“We should never have gone out,” she repeats. “Sometimes I dream that she’s still alive. I dream that we stayed home that day and played with her dolls. And then I wake up.”

My eyes fill with tears. It’s awful. So awful. But what plays in my mind are Lena’s words—about why Julia really left. “Was there another reason you left?” I whisper. “To do with Greg?”

She looks at me and there’s something in her face. Is it fear? But then the door opens and Sean comes in, walking to the other side of the bed to sit in the red armchair.

“I was paralyzed by my grief,” Julia says—to me, but her other hand reaches toward Sean. He looks at it but doesn’t take it, remains hunched in the chair.