“I had to get out of that house,” she says. “God—the smell.” She shudders. “I can’t stand it. Seeing Julia like that—wasn’t she always larger than life? Didn’t she light up any room she was in? I didn’t want to come. I wanted to remember her like she was. All those parties, do you remember?”

Not big, formal parties. Impulsive get-togethers. Max, Lena, and their parents on their infrequent trips back to the UK, Dad, Julia, me, and Bella. A few neighbors sometimes, regulars from the pub. Bring a bottle and tuck in.

“So why are you here?” I ask again.

“Max. He made me come. He’d have killed me if I’d refused.” She shakes her head and kicks the wall. “I’m out of here as soon as possible on Sunday, though. I’ve said all the goodbyes I need to. I don’t need to stay and watch her die.”

“What about Max—will he stay?”

She shrugs. “He has to work, so I don’t know.” She glances at me. “Still got that crush, Tess?”

“Don’t be daft. I was just asking.”

“I never got why you used to follow Max around with those big, puppy-dog eyes when Jack and Sean were around. God, those boys—were any boys ever so brooding and beautiful?”

They terrified me as a teenager. Not like Max, so steady and kind. Jack and Sean weren’t storybook brooding; they were bitter, too much rage too close to the surface, so much worse after Julia left them for us. And all of it aimed at Bella and me: the usurpers, the thieves of their mother’s love. It wasn’t thrilling, being with them, it was frightening.

Lena grabs my arm. “There he is,” she says, pointing at a shadow in one of the windows.

“Right,” I say, walking toward the gate. “I’m going in—I’m going to make him come and see Julia.” I glance back at her. “Are you coming?”

She shakes her head and pulls a face. “Second thoughts, too many ghosts for me in there. Not all of them dead. Sorry, Tess.”

I’m at the gate when her voice stops me.

“Do you ever wonder where we’d all be if Bella hadn’t died?”

I look back.

“Would we all still be friends?”

“I don’t know.”

“I never had a friend like her—not before, not since. It felt like we were the sisters sometimes.”

The old jealousy stirs. “It’s been ten years, Lena.”

“And my life has been pretty much shit ever since she died.” She looks lost and it dampens the embers of jealousy.

She wipes a hand across her face. Was she crying? Lena? Impossible to tell under the sunglasses. But then she smiles. “Ignore me,” she says. “My hangover’s making me sentimental. Go on then—go catch yourself a Lewis boy.”