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That was the annoying part. It would have been simpler if Samantha were merely difficult. Instead, she was difficult and right often enough to make it hard to argue. She had done the visits. She had read the care-home brochures and winced over the fees and chosen a room with space for photographs. She had kept the girls cheerful through the missing chair at Christmas dinner.

Carly had moved the dog.

Berkeley doing well at Lauren’s mattered. It wasn’t the same as sitting beside her dad while his life was packed into boxes.

“New Year’s Day,” Beth said, as if reading the conclusion off Carly’s face. “You’ll go.”

“Yes.” Carly opened the driver’s door. “We all will.”

“Look at us,” Beth said, walking around to the passenger side. “Functional family Christmas. Tiny miracles everywhere.”

Carly snorted, started the engine, and drove Beth home. Neither of them spoke much. Beth held on to her wine. Carly kept both hands on the wheel and thought of the empty chair, the gifts he had chosen by pointing, and Lauren’s last message sitting unread on her phone because Carly had been too busy pretending Christmas dinner hadn’t taken anything out of her.

Back from Mum’s. Survived, just. My sisters spent all afternoon perched on the arms of the sofa because Berkeley had claimed the rug. Best present I got. Kettle’s on and the sofa’s free all evening, if the battlefield gets too much. No pressure x

Carly read it twice outside Beth’s place while Beth gathered the wine bottle off her lap.

“You’re smiling at your phone,” Beth said, pausing with the car door open. “Disgusting behaviour.”

“Go and put your wine to bed.”

“I was going to,” Beth said, but she lingered with the bottle tucked under one arm, looking at it. “Actually, take it.”

Carly blinked. “Your fancy wine?”

“Our fancy wine,” Beth corrected, leaning back in to set it on the passenger seat. “Samantha’s husband nearly had it with turkey gravy. That’s trauma enough for one bottle.”

Carly rested a hand on the tissue-wrapped glass. “Is this your way of telling me to go somewhere better?”

“It’s my way of not trusting myself alone with excellent Burgundy and Christmas telly.” Beth shut the door, then leaned down again. “And yes. If you don’t have somewhere better to be, you’re having the wrong kind of Christmas. Don’t overthink it.”

Carly watched Beth disappear inside, minus the bottle and still somehow looking like she’d won. Then she looked at the passenger seat: a paper crown, a crushed napkin, and the wine.

She could go home. She should go home. Berkeley was at Lauren’s, but Lauren had told her twice already that he was fine, and Carly trusted her. That was the whole point.

Trust didn’t explain why she kept picturing the bungalow kitchen. Dog hair, shortcake, Lauren making a joke and then, more and more often, saying the real thing as well.

They’d agreed to keep it quiet until after Christmas. No team chat, no Jenna, and absolutely no Samantha. So far only Paige knew, which meant Becky, and Beth, because she’d turned up at the office the morning after training and refused to leave until Carly told her. That was already three more people than Carly had planned for. A week in, Carly still wasn’t sure what to call it.

Turning up on Christmas night with Beth’s wine and a head full of things Carly wasn’t ready to say was not a plan. It was barely even a decision.

But New Year’s Day was coming whether she was ready or not. Her father was in a care home whether she looked at him or not. Beth had visited him three times. Samantha had cried over a label.

She texted Lauren before she could turn the instinct into an operational risk assessment.

Is the kettle still on?

The reply came almost immediately.

Always. Berkeley is currently supervising me eating cheese on toast. Why?

Carly stared at the screen until it dimmed.

I’m nearby. I have wine.

Three dots appeared, vanished, then appeared again.

On Christmas Day? How scandalous. Bring it here before I’m forced to open the emergency Baileys.