She turns to look at me. “Why do they bring her here? Isn’t that a bit weird? Most babysitters go to the kid’s house, don’t they?”

I shrug. I don’t tell Bella I think it’s because Julia knows how uncomfortable I am around her sons. I think Julia knows I might say no to babysitting if she asked me to go to their house.

Bella rings Dad’s office and they tell her he left at five thirty like he always does, but it’s past seven now and as usual he doesn’t have his mobile phone on. Bella’s worried, too. She doesn’t say anything but I can see her glancing at the clock and it tightens the knot in my stomach even more. It’s freezing outside, the roads lethal with black ice. When I hear his car door slam, my whole body floods with relief and I flop down onto a chair and laugh.

“Where were you?” we shout in unison as he comes through the door.

He’s white-faced and shaky and the look on his face terrifies me because it’s the same look he had when he came home from the hospital with Mum and they sat us down and told us about the cancer.

“Something awful has happened,” he says, and there’s a break in his voice. Bella rushes over and hugs him but I’m frozen in place, wanting nothing more than to put my hands over my ears and not hear whatever he’s going to say.

“Julia was driving…she had Jack and Ellie with her. And the roads were so icy…”

Stop.

“She hit a patch of ice and the car crashed.”

Stop.

“And Ellie…Ellie’s side took the impact. She died. Oh God—Ellie’s dead.”

Bella starts crying, hysterical sobs that hurt my ears. And I…I can’t breathe.

Ellie. Little Ellie with the blond hair and the Barbie she named Tessie after me, that she declared was her favorite ever ever doll. Ellie, who I’ve babysat for so many times she has a box of toys here in the house.

Ellie, my secret baby sister.

Shh, I want to say to Dad. Stop. Don’t say any more. Don’t say any more and it won’t be real.

April 2007