A returning smile tugs at the corners of my own mouth and the disorienting feeling I got with Lena, that I’m sixteen again, fades. But there’s still something nagging at me. Why is Sean being so nice? Christ knows, he has no reason to. Why is he even here, if not for Julia? I grit my teeth.

“So what’s going on—why are you skulking around here instead of spending time with your mother? Your dying mother?”

“I am going to see her.”

It wrong-foots me. I came in expecting to have to fight to get him over to see Julia.

“I wasn’t going to. I told Leo and Max I wouldn’t. I was going to come back to the house, do what I had to do, and leave without visiting. I thought…” He pauses and shakes his head. “I thought I’d have more time, you know? When Leo rang to tell me about the cancer—God, it was only six months ago. I thought she’d fight it, get through it. I put off calling and visiting, but I always thought I’d have time. Then Leo told me she was dying and my instinct was still to stay away, but it’s my last chance, isn’t it? Last chance to…”

His voice trails off and I hope the missed words are last chance to say goodbye and not last chance to scream accusations.

“So why are you here?” I say again, spreading my arms to indicate the abandoned house, the darkness, the dust. “Are you hiding?”

He kicks a cardboard box next to him. “We’ve sold the house.”

“Sold it? That’s a bit sudden…” I stop and laugh. “Sorry. What a stupid thing to say.”

“Yeah—not sure you could call ten years of the house being empty a sudden sale.”

There’s a silence that should be awkward, but somehow it isn’t. One thing about Sean, he’s good at being quiet. “Maybe the new owners will finish what your dad started—make this place fabulous.” I think of the gardens with a pang.

He smiles and shrugs. “Doubt it. We’ve sold it to a construction company. They’re going to build a whole load of new houses on the site. Initial work starts Monday—they’ll be clearing the grounds, emptying the house before pulling it down.” He looks at the box. “I told Jack I’d come here and pack up anything we wanted to keep, but…I don’t know what to take.” He picks up a pottery ornament from the box, blows the dust off. “I don’t know…was any of it really Dad’s? It’s just stuff, isn’t it? None of it important. If it was important, he’d have taken it with him.”

“Has he…” I stop to clear my throat. “Has he ever been back?”