This brings us to the point of our trip. Kerry is going to propose to Nessa and I’m here to help choose the ring. Kerry’s face holds still for a moment, her hand resting on my arm. There is an emerald ring on her thumb that catches the last of the sun before it disappears behind a cloud.
‘What if she says no?’
I burst out laughing but check myself, because hidden in the confident poise, that is as much part of my sister as her blue eye colour, is a shimmer of vulnerability. I reach over and squeeze her hand.
‘She won’t. And then you can experience married life and I can get on your case for not having sex often enough.’
‘Not going to happen.’ She winks at me.
‘No . . . I don’t suppose it will.’
We continue walking, Kerry’s red boots expressing our progress with firm, determined thuds.
‘Being married shouldn’t hold you back, Jen,’ she adds.
‘It doesn’t.’ I keep looking forward, even though from the corner of my eye I can feel her scrutinising my face. ‘I mean, sure I’d like to be a bit more adventurous sometimes, but I like my life, Kerry. I’m not you.’
‘I know that, but when was the last time you, oh I don’t know . . . went on a roller coaster?’
‘Last month.’
‘I mean a real one, Jen, not the bloody pirate ship at the safari park with Hailey.’
‘What’s that got to do with anything?’ I rummage in my pocket and unwrap a chewing gum, offer one to Kerry which she declines.
‘You used to love them!’ she exclaims as if me not going to Alton Towers is the biggest regret anyone in the history of mankind has ever had.
‘I still do, but me and Ed—’
‘You and Ed need to stop putting You and Ed on hold.’
‘We don’t.’ I flick my hair over my shoulder. ‘We had a quickie last week while the kids were downstairs,’ I say triumphantly and stop again to begin searching in my bag for my umbrella. ‘Have you got a brolly?’ I peer up at the swollen grey clouds which are hanging heavily above the high street.
‘This is what I mean! It doesn’t matter if you don’t have a brolly, Jen . . . what’s the worst thing that can happen? You’ll get wet and your mascara will run.’
‘I’m not wearing mascara.’
She shrugs her shoulders and gestures to the sky as if proving her point. It starts to drizzle; the rain runs in neat little droplets off Kerry’s red coat, while it seeps into my beige mac. We continue across the zebra crossing while I pull out my phone and wake the screen to reveal Google maps. ‘I think the new jeweller’s is down one of the side roads,’ I say. Kerry’s boots continue to make their progress as I stop and check the screen. ‘Hold on, Kerry . . . I think it’s—’
And those are the last words my sister ever hears.
Chapter One
Jennifer
If a person could see me now, sitting on my fashionably grey sofa watching the latest blockbuster, they might be a little jealous. My home is tidy, perfectly finished, each room an exact replica of a page in the Next Directory. In the kitchen, the coffee machine gleams while my perfectly ironed tea-towels sit neatly in organised drawers.
But what they wouldn’t know is that Jennifer Jones’s sister died in front of her three months ago, and Jennifer Jones has just realised that, for those three months, she hasn’t been living.
Not really.
I know I’m alive, but I haven’t really been living. Being alive and actually living life are two very different things. I’m not explaining myself very well; I’ll try and do better.
When you lose someone – when your life is turned upside down and you’re left broken – grief clings to every part of your being: you can’t see properly, you can’t breathe, you can’t speak, you can’t eat, you can’t sleep . . . you’re living, but at the same time, you’re not alive.
But the thing about realising you haven’t actually been living life properly, is that when the fog of grief begins to lift, it makes you look at the world differently. And it makes you appreciate every little detail.
Take my husband. He is currently picking his nose. His index finger is reaching out from the freckly hand that held mine while I pushed our children out into the world, up into the nostril of the nose that I have kissed the end of,