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Coralie looked down the corridor of years and saw Zora ending up like her, a lie-in-bed-and-worrier, an awaker-at-four to worry some more.

It probably wasn’t appropriate that she attempt to influence this child in any way.

The specter of Marina loomed. While rigidly polite, she treated Coralie like Priscilla, her afternoon babysitter: a low-level functionary who nevertheless oversaw an important element of her (Marina’s) life.

A year earlier, during a Zora handover before Coralie’s first Christmas with Adam, Marina had hovered near a stack of Fortnum she finds it hard to eat with the chemo and all her restrictions….”

She trailed off and let her words become one with the sound of the boiling kettle.

Whenever people talked about her mother, it was hard not to hear the question they were carefully not asking: Why aren’t you with her?

But she’d had cancer for, what, nearly four years?

Even Daniel hadn’t been there the whole time.

And, unlike Coralie, busy making a living and building a life , he had nothing else to do.

He was only working casually as a cook—not a chef; she wasn’t exactly sure why she’d called him that.

Besides, apart from the infrequent crises of her actual operations, her mother always said she was fine.

It was patently obvious she wasn’t—but ultimately, she was the boss.

“You must miss home at this time of year,” Sally said.

“I’m still getting used to a cold Christmas—it was all prawns and mangoes for me growing up. I can’t bring myself to do a turkey.” Coralie shuddered. “It seems so wrong.”

Anne snorted her approval. “Preaching to the converted.”

“And your family,” Sally courteously persisted. “Your parents live separately, don’t they?”

“My dad is based in Canberra, yes, with his new…” It made her feel a bit sick to say girlfriend .

“Partner? I suppose not that new, really; they’ve been together for a decade.

They always have their Christmas lunch in a hotel, for some reason.

Mum was the real Christmas-lover.” An image came to her of her mother’s festive napkin rings, the holly design she’d painted herself.

She packed them up carefully in an egg carton and took them to every house they moved to, to be brought out for one meal a year.

Where were they? Where was the cut-glass crystal trifle bowl?

Did she still have her puffy red tartan headband from the nineties and the apron with All I want for Christmas is you ?

Coralie glanced at the kitchen clock. Her mother kept a child’s bedtime during her chemo cycles.

She could possibly catch her if she rang now.

Did she miss her family? Coralie realized she’d been silent for quite a while. “Yes…” she said uncertainly.

There came the most beautiful sound in the world: the front door opening.

“Sally!” Zora ran down the hall. “Look at my dress, it’s like fur!”

“Velvet, Zora!” Sally pulled her up for a hug. “Oh my word! I would have died for this dress when I was young.”

Adam had taken his scarf off but left his coat on.

Coralie realized with a pang that he didn’t want Anne to comment on his belly.

The last quarter of the year was hard on the waistline; there were the political party conferences, then what Adam called “shepherd’s pie weather,” then two or three Christmas functions per week, minimum, all December.

She went over and put her arms around him.

He rested his cheek against hers. He was beautiful, and she loved him.

“Coralie’s made some tea,” Anne said. “But you’ve just had a coffee.”

“I’ll have a tea.” He kissed Sally on the cheek. “Hi, Sally.” He kissed Anne on the top of the head. “Hi, Mum.”