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‘I’ll fill you in at some point. But can I ask? The doctor . . .’

Lily grimaced and picked up her mulled wine. ‘I don’t really want to get into it.’

‘Right. Right, sorry, of course not.’

Lily reached out, took Holly’s hand on the table. ‘Not because of you, Holly. But because it’s still not . . . easy . . . for me to talk about. But I think we’re going to adopt.’ She tried for a smile.

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah. We’ve started the process. It can take a bit of time, but it’s what we want to do.’

‘Well,’ Holly said, trying to smile too. ‘I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you, in that case.’

Lily smiled. ‘Thank you.’ She pulled her hand back gently. ‘So, now that that’s all out of the way . . . what are you doing for Christmas?’

Holly laughed at the ridiculousness of this. But she appreciated the attempt at normality. Maybe that’s what they’d have to do for a little while – pretend, until they didn’t have to pretend anymore.

Holly thought about Lily’s question. She thought of the unopened Dear Stranger letter waiting for her at home. Of the one she’d already written and sent out this year. All the same as last year – with one big difference.

‘I’m spending it with a friend of mine, in Devon.’ She had mentioned all the time she’d have on Christmas Day, trying to be jokey, and Emma had frowned at her. ‘Aren’t you coming here, then?’ And that was that. Holly hadn’t spoken to Jack about it, though. Had barely spoken to him at all, since the wedding.

‘Well,’ Lily said, ‘Steve and I are spending Christmas with his parents, but we’ll be at Mum and Dad’s for Boxing Day, if you wanted to come along . . .’

Holly stared at her sister, her heart thumping a little more heavily than usual. ‘Really? Do you think they’d want me there though?’

‘Are you kidding? Of course they’d want you there! Holly, they’d be over the moon.’

‘I’m not so sure that’s true,’ she said quietly. And when Lily just looked at her, she elaborated. ‘They never invite me round. Never really seem to want to see me at all after the accident.’

Lily frowned. ‘That’s because you never want to go round. You always have some excuse, something else you’re doing. Mum stopped asking, she told me.’

‘She did?’

‘Yes. She was upset with me about it, actually,’ Lily said, with a sad little smile. ‘She was telling me off, for driving you away. It was just once, and she apologised after, but I think she really did blame me for it.’

‘She blamed you? I thought she blamed me.’

‘No! Of course not. It wasn’t your fault, Holly.’

Holly had been trying, very hard, not to cry, but now she could feel the tears, dripping off the end of her nose. In one smooth motion Lily came round to her side of the table and sat down next to Holly in the booth, putting her arm around her. Her big sister, comforting her like she used to when they were little.

‘I’m so sorry, Hol. I should have been around. I shouldn’t have pushed you away.’

‘We should have been around for each other,’ Holly said, her voice thick through tears.

‘We are now, I promise.’

Holly nodded. ‘Can I give you something?’ she asked Lily.

‘Holly, you don’t need to give me anything. All I’ve wanted for years is to see you, and you’ve already given me that.’

‘I want to, though.’ After a brief hesitation, Holly reached into her bag, and brought out a bundle of letters, held together with an elastic band. She hadn’t known whether she was going to give them to her, but it felt right now, that her sister should be able to read them, if she wanted to. That she should know how much Holly had thought about her over the last four years, even if she hadn’t had the courage to face her.

‘I wrote letters to you. Since the crash, I mean.’

Lily’s brow furrowed a little as she took the offered letters, staring at the blank envelopes.

‘I wrote them, but I never sent them. I couldn’t bring myself to. You don’t have to read them,’ she said quickly. ‘But I wanted you to know, that I didn’t just forget about you.’