The inquest said it was an accident so an accident it was. Case closed. He put the lid on the box and sent me away, and I don’t think I’ve opened the box since. As my grief grew less sharp edged, I burned with humiliation and tucked the box farther away under the bed to gather more dust, telling myself he was right, the inquest findings were right, everyone was right. It was an accident.

But I never threw the box away.

“So what’s the plan then? Are you going to become Tanya Nibbington, Norfolk’s most famous tree surgeon?”

We’ve moved on from tea and are halfway down the bottle of wine Sophie brought with her.

“I have no clue. I’m already freaking out about how I’m going to pay the rent on this place.”

“But you’re still being paid at the moment, aren’t you?”

“Yeah—while it’s still a suspension. But let’s be realistic—they’re not going to let me back, are they? After that, I’ve probably got about three months before I run out of money.”

Sophie’s silent for a moment. “Plenty of time to find something else—to figure out what you want to do. And if you’re stuck, I have a sofa bed, no problem.”

“You’re an angel. And as much as I’d love to stay with you, I hope it doesn’t come to that. Homeless and jobless is not a look I’m going for.”

Sophie squeezes my hand. “Hey, maybe there’s one tiny positive in all this. You have time now to go back and be with your stepmother. To be there for your dad.”

My throat tightens. It’s not just the walls closing in at the thought of going back there, it’s the whole bloody world. “I can’t. I can’t go back there.”

“But…Tess, your stepmother’s dying.”

“Do you know, I haven’t been back there for longer than a day in nearly a decade? Not even to see Julia since she was diagnosed. I’ve only visited her in the hospital.”

“Seriously? That’s…shit. Why?”

“Because…I told you my sister died in an accident. But I never told you it was the night of Dad’s wedding to Julia. I never told you I was there…”

She looks at me, waiting for more. I swallow hard.

“Look, Soph, it…it was like this. We were out in the woods and we both fell, or something—I was unconscious. When I woke up her body was right there next to me. She was dead. And I still don’t remember what happened, how we ended up there.”