“Read,” Ellie says, tottering into the room in her Peppa Pig jammies, weighed down by a heavy hardbacked book, Bella walking behind her.

I frown as Ellie drops the book on my lap. “Why did you give her this?” I say to Bella, who shrugs and doesn’t look up from her phone.

“It’s a kid’s book, isn’t it?”

It’s more than a kid’s book. It’s the book our mother used to read to us, full of creepy fairy tales that started giving me nightmares after she died. I kept it hidden after that because I didn’t want to look at it, but I also kept it treasured because it was something precious to Mum. It isn’t something a four-year-old with sticky fingers and a penchant for scribbling on any paper she finds should have.

“I tell you what,” I say to Ellie with a big smile. “We can read later but let’s play Barbies now, okay?”

It’s easy to distract her with dolls.

Bella sinks down on the sofa next to me. “Do you think he likes me?” she says, picking up a Barbie in a wedding dress.

“Who?”

Not Max. Please don’t say Max. My heart still flutters when I see him. Max is the reason I said yes to that disastrous night at the pub, even though I knew Bella’s friends and Jack and Sean would be there.

Bella drops the doll when her phone beeps and she picks it up with a smile. “Never mind,” she says. “I’m just popping out for a bit. Cover for me if Dad comes back, okay?”

“Bella?” I call after her as she shrugs into her jacket. “Do you want to do something tomorrow? Just us two?”

She hesitates and opens her mouth to answer but then her phone pings again and she’s distracted, staring down at the screen. “Sure,” she says, hand on the door. “If I have time.”

“It’s okay,” Ellie says after Bella slams the front door behind her. She pats my hand. “I’ll still play with you.”

I laugh and pick up another doll. “Thanks, Ellie—we’ll have way more fun, won’t we?”

“I wish I had sisters,” she says, struggling to push a doll’s foot into a pink boot. “I wish you were my sister.”

I hug her and kiss her blond curls. She smells of chocolate and strawberry shampoo. “You can be my secret baby sister,” I say.

There’s a tap on the front door as I’m covering Ellie with a blanket. She crashed out on the sofa just before nine after an epic Barbie session consisting of four weddings and two parties.

I hurry to the door, not wanting Ellie to wake up cranky and tired. I step back in shock when I see Sean on the doorstep.