Chapter 6

I stayed in the hotel for three days.

I thought about a lot of things.

I thought about being small, and Dad swinging me up onto his shoulders so I could see over the crowd at a street fair.

I thought about being ill, and Mum sitting up all night with me when I had a fever.

I thought about Jamie as a toddler, following me around the flat, calling out Sissy, Sissy until I turned around.

How had we ended up here?

I'd been let down so many times that I'd closed the door and stopped answering.

And they'd been turned away so many times that they'd stopped knocking.

We'd all been hurting each other for years, without quite managing to say so.

Last night had been ugly and clumsy and badly managed.

It had also, for the first time, let some light in.

On the third afternoon, I checked out and went home.

The house was very quiet.

The doodle notebook was on the coffee table. Next to it, a photo of me at ten years old, holding the stuffed bear.

Mum appeared from the kitchen. When she saw me, her eyes went immediately red.

She was holding a fruit bowl. She didn't seem to know what to do with it.

"Sophie. You're back."

"I'm hungry," I said. "Is there anything to eat?"

She stared at me.

Then: "Yes. Yes! Let me warm something up—"

She turned and practically ran to the kitchen.

Dad and Jamie came out of the study. They both looked at me the way you look at something that might vanish if you move too suddenly.

I walked to Dad and held out the USB drive.

"Thank you for this," I said.

His hands were unsteady taking it.

"Sophie—"

"I forgive you," I said.

Not because of the party. Not because of the piano. Because of the security footage — the three of them alone in that wrecked room, all the bravado gone.

Because I understood, finally, that love isn't a question with a right answer. It's not something you pass or fail.

It's more like a proof. Something you spend a lifetime attempting, revising, attempting again.

"But," I said, and looked at all of them, "I have conditions."

"One: no more surprises. Especially not this kind."

"Two: if there's something to say, say it directly. No guessing, no staging."

"Three:" I paused, looking toward the kitchen where Mum was clattering about, then back at Dad and Jamie. "Every weekend is a family day. No exceptions for work, no unexplained absences."

Dad and Jamie looked at each other. Then, simultaneously, they nodded. Emphatically.

"Done. Whatever you say."

That night, we had dinner together — all four of us — for the first time in I don't know how long.

No expensive wine. No elaborate food. Just a few ordinary dishes that Mum had made.

She kept piling things onto my plate. Dad kept telling stories from when he was young, the kind where the punchline was always himself.

Jamie sat next to me and, without saying anything, lifted the peppers off my plate and moved them to his, the way he used to when we were small.

After dinner, the four of us crowded onto the sofa together and watched a film — something old and ridiculous that Dad had seen fifty times and still laughed at too hard.

Mum fell asleep on Dad's shoulder. He left her there.

I was resting against her side, watching the screen. My phone buzzed.

A group chat invitation.

Name: Truly Happy Family.

Four members.

I tapped Join.

Dad sent a smiley face.

Mum sent a rose.

Jamie sent: Welcome home, Sis.

I looked at the screen. Something in my chest felt, for the first time in a very long time, quiet.

I knew the hole wasn't filled. Ten years of those missed birthdays don't disappear overnight.

Those lost afternoons were gone. Nothing could bring them back.

But at least now, all four of us were trying. In our clumsy, imperfect, earnest way, learning how to love each other — and how to let each other in.

That was enough.