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Lily and Bryce came in holding hands, fingers laced.
"Diana, I could smell the food from outside — I'm sorry we're so late, we should have come earlier to help."
"Don't be silly, get in, get in. I've done Bryce's favourite lamb and your pasta as well."
They stepped into the sitting room, and both of them seemed to notice me at exactly the same moment — the way you notice something you'd briefly forgotten about. Lily pulled back slightly, the way she always had when she first came here, as though I were something unpredictable and dangerous.
My mother shot me a look that said: smile, be normal, don't do this.
I didn't move.
Bryce's eyes dropped to the heavy bandaging around my leg. His voice softened.
"Zara — is it getting better?"
I gave a polite nod.
At the table, my mother seated them in the best spots, the ones closest to the serving dishes, and then turned to me.
"Get Lily's drink from the fridge, would you — she likes the mango juice."
Lily glanced at me and looked uncomfortable.
"Diana, honestly, don't bother."
"It's no bother — she can manage."
"No, it's not that —" Lily placed a hand on her stomach, that particular gesture, and turned to look at Bryce with a small, private smile. "I'm not supposed to have anything cold right now. And I can't have the lamb either, I'm afraid."
She let the pause do its work.
"We're expecting," she said. "Just past twelve weeks."
Bryce looked down at the table. Whatever was on his face, I couldn't read it.
My mother reacted as though she herself had received the news. She grasped Lily's arm and began a rapid inventory of what she should and shouldn't eat, vitamin supplements, when she ought to rest — she was practically suggesting Lily move back in to be properly looked after.
"Your old room is still exactly as you left it. If Bryce can't always get back at lunch, just come here and rest."
The room I'd grown up in had been given to Lily when she first arrived, on the grounds that she'd had a hard start in life and needed the light. For four years of university, whenever Lily was in Bristol, she slept in my room. I stayed in the box room with no window.
A beat of silence settled over the table. Lily turned to me with her most careful expression.
"Zara — you're back for good this time, right? Diana talks about you all the time, even though she pretends she doesn't. She looks at every photo you post."
She paused.
"I used to be so jealous of the things you got to do — the Syria footage, the Libya evacuation coverage. I could never do anything like that. I'm just Bryce's little homebody." She pressed her lips together, like she was apologising for something. "I always felt a bit guilty, actually. Diana and Bryce gave me so much help back in school. I could never repay it properly."