Rosie unlocked the door and their tortoiseshell cat, Cher, greeted her enthusiastically as always, after which she broke into a high-pitched offended-sounding meow, as though she hadn’t eaten in days.

“Have you fed Cher?” Rosie yelled. Their flat was so small, Paige would be able to hear her from whichever room she was in.

Rosie walked into the living room and found Paige tucked under a blanket in the sofa.

“When have I ever come home from school and not fed the cat?” Paige sounded almost as offended as Cher’s meow earlier. The cat kept pushing herself against Rosie’s shins. “Would I even be sitting on this sofa, looking this relaxed, if I had not fed the cat?” Paige shook her head. “She would never allow it.” She tapped her hands on the blanket and called for Cher to come sit in her lap. The cat obeyed. She had the uncanny ability of displaying very dog-like behaviour.

Their Aunt Hilary had given them Cher five years ago, when she was still a kitten and Paige had been going through a phase of desperately wanting a puppy. It was hard to deny her sister, who had already lost so much at such a young age, and the cat had been the perfect compromise.

“Sorry.” Rosie dropped her bag on a chair and sat on the sofa. “How was your day?”

Cher had turned her meows into some heavy purring and pushed her furry head into Paige’s hand. “Same as always,” Paige shrugged. “Boring teachers and annoying boys.”

Rosie chuckled and glanced at her sister and the cat in her lap. How could it be that this girl would be going off to university soon? The past eight years, Rosie had often had to be more like a mother to Paige than an older sister. Paige was only ten when their parents had died so suddenly. She and her sister had ended up close but, nevertheless, Rosie’d had to deal with the inevitable hormonal tantrums that came with living with a teenager.

But Paige was no longer a girl. She’d had to grow up much faster than most of the kids her age and it showed. It made perfect sense she’d be leaving for uni come September. If Rosie found the money to pay for it, which she had to do sooner rather than later.

“How was your day?” Paige asked. Cher looked up and glanced at Rosie as though she too wanted to know the answer to that question.

“It was quite busy, actually.” She remembered Charlie sitting at what had become her regular table away from the window. Rosie had been run off her feet for the better part of Charlie’s stay and hadn’t been able to chat with her, even though she’d been looking forward to it. “There’s this new customer. A woman,” Rosie said.

Paige arched up her eyebrows. Cher no longer seemed interested in the conversation. “Someone from London who’s staying in the area for a few weeks. She’s come to the cafe every day this week. She’s rather… nice.”

“Nice?” Paige sat up a bit. “What does that mean?”

“You know, much more polite and courteous than most. Very sure of herself. Witty.” Rosie had long forgiven Charlie for rudely bumping into her at the train station when she first arrived. She might be a rich Londoner who wore fancy jackets but she didn’t behave like one.

“I know other women who are very sure of themselves. One in particular,” Paige said. She nodded her head in the direction of the flowers that stood in a vase on the table.

Rosie sighed. “That’s not self-assuredness,” she said. “That’s just plain old desperation.”

“At least Amy’s predictable and consistent. And, judging by the amount of flowers she sends you, she has many, many feelings for you,” Paige said, a smirk on her face.

“Those feelings stopped being mutual when her parents opened their new cafe.”

“Come on, Rosie. That was just business. You can’t blame Amy for that.”

“I guess not.” Rosie shook her head. “There are other issues with Amy. For starters, she clearly lacks imagination if she thinks sending me flowers every week is going to change my mind about her.” She huffed out some air. “We’re just not right for each other, and that’s without running competing local businesses.” Rosie reached over and petted Cher on the head. She needed to feel something soft and soothing. “She’s just as pushy as her parents.”

“You’ll just have to wait for another woman of your inclination to pass through Otter Bay.” Paige smiled at her.

Like Charlie, Rosie thought, a flutter rising in her belly. She shook the thought from her mind and refocussed her attention on her sister.

“Summer’s coming, and with it the lesbians will flock, as they do every year,” Rosie joked. She should be so lucky.

The bell rang. Rosie momentarily stiffened. She hoped it wasn’t Amy. Cher raised her head at the intrusive noise. Rosie got up to open the door and found Aunt Hilary standing in the doorway.

Relief washed over Rosie. Not only because it wasn’t Amy turning up unannounced again, but also because Aunt Hilary would be bringing food.

“Dinner’s here,” Aunt Hilary said as she beamed Rosie a wide smile.

At the sound of the door opening, Cher had jumped out of Paige’s lap and circled around them in the hallway, eternally hopeful of getting more food.

“Let me take that from you.” Rosie kissed her aunt on the cheek and took the hefty Tupperware container from her. So often she wondered what she would have done without Aunt Hilary.

Aunt Hilary had tried to persuade her not to come back to Otter Bay after her parents’ death, but instead finish her last year of university. But not being near Paige after losing their mum and dad had been inconceivable to Rosie. And how was she expected to study after her whole world had been shattered?

Aunt Hilary picked up Cher and, as usual, told her she was the prettiest cat not just in Cornwall, but in the whole wide world.

Paige started setting the table and ten minutes later the three of them were eating Aunt Hilary’s delicious sausage and bean casserole.

“If Gina fails her citizenship test again, you should take her place,” Rosie said. “Your food is so scrumptious and comforting.”

Aunt Hilary waved her off. “I’m a bit over the hill for working in a kitchen, dear.” Then she looked Rosie in the eye. “I’m sure Gina will pass. She’s a brilliant woman. How can she possibly fail?”

“It’s the written test she keeps failing. She’s good with all the rest because she is, indeed, brilliant. I’d hate to lose her over a stupid test like that. She’s taken it four times already. And she even has family in the UK.” Rosie all but threw her hands in the air in desperation.

“That’s just ridiculous,” Aunt Hilary said. She looked at Rosie again. “Is that what’s been worrying you? I’ve seen you look better.” She put down her fork. “Or is it the time of year?”

Rosie tried to make eyes at Hilary and have her stop this line of conversation in front of Paige.

“Eight years next week,” Paige said, reminding Rosie, once again, that she wasn’t a little girl anymore.

Aunt Hilary nodded slowly. “If only Maude and Mark could see you now.” There was a slight wobble in her voice. “They would be so proud of the two of you.”

Aunt Hilary didn’t know the extent of trouble the cafe was in — and had no clue of the cost of a university education these days.

“Should we do something?” Paige asked, sounding much more mature than her eighteen years. “To commemorate?”

When Rosie thought of herself as an eighteen-year-old, she remembered a much more carefree person than her sister. Life had handed them both a tough deal, and the past decade had been a real struggle, but at least Rosie had been twenty when she’d heard the news of the crash, Paige had only been ten.

Rosie might not have graduated from university, but she was damned proud of the kind of eighteen-year-old her sister had turned out to be. It could have gone in so many directions. But Rosie had come back to take care of her sister and keep their parents’ cafe going. She’d done a damn good job of raising Paige and, despite the cafe’s current cash flow problem, she could at least hand herself that one.

“We could do something,” Aunt Hilary said, as she did every year. Losing her sister and her brother-in-law had been equally hard on her and she’d never been one to mark the occasion. She’d bestowed plenty of warmth on Rosie and Paige when they needed a more adult shoulder to cry on, mainly in the shape of home-made casseroles and dealing with the avalanche of administration that comes with the sudden death of two family members, but she wasn’t one to display too many emotions, not even in front of her nieces — her saying she was proud of them was not an everyday occurrence.

“It’s not because it’s the anniversary that we have to do something special to remember them,” Rosie said. “I think about them every day. I go to the cemetery at least once a week.” Actually, Rosie hadn’t gone yet this week and she suddenly remembered that she’d missed the previous week’s walk there as well.

Then Cher jumped on the table and all three of them reacted instantly by shooing her off.

“That cat has such bad manners,” Aunt Hilary said.

“Paige spoils her too much,” Rosie said matter-of-factly. It was nothing but the truth. She was also glad that Cher’s appearance on the table had steered the conversation away from the subject of the anniversary of her parents’ death.

Cher sat on the rug licking a paw, looking all innocent.

“If only I could take her with me to uni,” Paige said.

“What? And leave me all alone?” Rosie said, putting on a faux-pathetic tone.

“I’ll be here for you.” Aunt Hilary briefly put a hand on Rosie’s shoulder.

Rosie shot her aunt a smile. She wondered if, with Paige leaving in a few months’ time, it might be time for her to leave as well. Sell the cafe and simply leave Otter Bay behind. Apart from Aunt Hilary, she had no family here. She could travel to Southeast Asia where backpackers could survive on a few pounds per day — at least she’d read that on one of the travel blogs she followed when she felt like dreaming up a different life. She and Amy were over, so love was hardly keeping her in this village either — if whatever they’d had between them had even been love.

Rosie glanced at the spot on her arm where Aunt Hilary had just touched her. She’d stay for her aunt, of course. And for Cher. And to give Paige a home to come back to during breaks.

“You’d better treat Cher like the princess she is,” Paige said. “She’ll have a hard time enough as it is getting over me no longer being here.”

Her and me both, Rosie thought.