So why would their mother have worried about her? Jess wasn’t the one who caused her concern; if anyone, it was Mia, the daughter who had to be dragged out of bed, the one who would bunk off school to smoke up in the field with the boys.

‘Yes, I wanted to be a runner.’ Jess laughed, but it wasn’t remotely funny.

Mia’s gaze travelled down to her sister’s useless legs and the faded blue pyjama bottoms limply hugging the frail bones beneath. She saw her sister naked every morning when she helped her shower and dress, and every day it still sickened her that those once-athletic legs had withered to nothing.

Jess couldn’t run any more. She couldn’t even walk. And every day it outraged Mia that someone had been responsible for doing this to her sister. And no one had paid.

Mia felt the anger bubbling inside her.

It was anger that always usurped the pity and guilt and sadness. It was anger that drove Mia on, and if she ever stopped, she might agree that it was unhealthy. But she wasn’t stopping. Not yet.

Inhaling a large breath, she reached across and took hold of her sister’s hands and held them in her own. ‘I love you, you know that, don’t you?’

‘Of course I know that.’ Jess’s eyes filled up again and she pulled away one of her hands so that she could wipe it across her face. ‘And I love you. And I’m so proud of you.’

‘For what?’ Mia asked, screwing up her eyes.

‘For doing what you’re doing.’

For a moment Mia held back, studying her sister, wondering what Jess actually knew.

‘For giving up everything and living back here, I mean,’ Jess said.

‘Oh, yeah, right.’ Mia let out a breath and smiled.

Sometimes Mia would think God had got it the wrong way round. It shouldn’t have happened to Jess. She herself was the lazy one, the one who used to sit around all day in her pyjamas, whiling away the hours doing nothing.

Mia often wondered if the same thoughts had crossed their mum’s mind too. The first time she had considered it was one year ago, when they’d both been standing in Southampton hospital, staring at her sister through the glass window, hooked up to machines, her life hanging by a thread, neither of them knowing if she would make it or not.