Hesitating, thoughts spiralled.

Sarah lowered her phone.

So Veronica’s life wasn’t as perfect as it appeared. She wanted a baby and didn’t have one. If she was jealous, then that was a reasonable, understandable explanation. Sarah felt sympathy begin to rise. But wait, was she really jealous? Had she actually been so when they were young? What would she have been jealous of? Probably, it was rubbish, all of it, just another Veronica drama, another way for her to manipulate, to pull at the heartstrings, to commandeer. Besides, no matter what her own jealousy, it was no excuse for sabotaging Amelia, a child.

Sarah lifted her phone again. Leverage was there for the taking. Power.

Veronica was sleeping soundly now. Oblivious and vulnerable.

Feet next to faces in a small single bed.

Just one snap.

Three weeks of giggling into the night.

One snap.

Three weeks of living like sisters, in the gap of her own.

One snap, and at last the woman would know consequences, she would know how it felt to not be in control.

Where had Veronica’s parents been for three whole weeks of the summer?

Sarah paused. Phone in hand, she paused. And into the pause flooded her own parents, and Eliza, and David, and herself, and the solidity of that circle. Even a member down. Even beset with attacks of panic. Even in the constant flux of unreliable friendships and unjust battles and law that wasn’t always Right.

The pause stretched on. For what seemed like many minutes, Sarah stood unmoving, collecting the memories and pieces of thought around her. Collecting them. Weighing them. Sorting them. Unpicking the strands.

If only Eliza had been there to help her as she used to, to be her mirror, to help her know.

Longing breath collected in Sarah’s lungs. Desperate, engulfing longing. For her no-more sister. Eliza.

Eliza.

Sarah looked at her phone.

10.10pm.

Something akin to either shame or conspiracy powered Sarah through the next minutes. She couldn’t believe what she had done. She pushed her phone hurriedly back into her bag, as though once there she could deny its purpose, and picking up Veronica’s top, it was not possible to manoeuvre her arms and head back into it, but she draped it across her chest. Collecting the last remains of sushi, she crossed the room to the kitchen and disposed of it neatly in the bin. She noticed the elderflower on the counter and returned the bottle to the fridge, fighting a quiet but terrifying thought in the back of her mind – what if Veronica was already pregnant, what would the sedatives do to the baby? Sarah shook her head. If Veronica really was jealous, then it was from absence of child, not presence. Everything was fine. Closing the fridge, she wiped spilled drops from the kitchen counter. She corked the wine. She found the remote to the sound system and turned off the soft jazz they’d had playing through the ceiling speakers. Veronica had mentioned that George would be home by 11pm. That was soon. He’d find Veronica and put her to bed. He’d assume she’d been drinking. When Veronica woke, she’d assume their glasses had somehow been mixed up. The colour was the same, the smell not so different. It was feasible. Sarah would see her at school sometime, and either say nothing, or something. Everything was fine.