Alicia didn’t have to shout upstairs to hurry Sophie on the next morning. Joining Justin in the hall, she looked towards her daughter as she descended the stairs. Her face was pale, her eyes awash with unshed tears. She looked frightened, lost and so very lonely.

Wanting to cry for her, wishing she could take her pain away, Alicia moved towards her as she reached the hall. Offering her a small smile, she held her gaze for a moment, trying to reassure her. She shouldn’t have to go through this. No one should. It was too cruel. Crueller still for a fifteen-year-old girl who was struggling to be an adult because she felt her parents needed her to be.

Sophie was going to do the eulogy. It would be one of the most heartbreaking things she would ever do in her life, but Alicia hadn’t tried to dissuade her. Justin had agreed it was something she needed to do, for her baby brother. He’d said he would step in if she couldn’t get through it. Alicia wondered, though, how he would get through it.

He looked dreadful, more exhausted than she’d ever seen him. Even at his lowest ebb, she’d never seen him look so utterly bereft. Dark shadows under his eyes – in his eyes – he looked like a man who might never sleep again.

She didn’t ask him if he was all right, reaching for his hand to squeeze it reassuringly instead. Justin squeezed hers back, briefly, and then pulled in a long breath and went to the front door to check whether the cars had arrived. Alicia didn’t want them to arrive. Didn’t want the moment to come when she would have to say a final goodbye to her child.

Gulping hard, she glanced down and then looked back to Sophie, whose eyes were now full of trepidation. Alicia reached for her hand. ‘Okay?’ she asked her, brushing a stray curl from her face. Cascading over her shoulders, Sophie’s long, sable hair was darker than Justin’s. Her eyes were a deep, rich chestnut brown, where Justin’s were blue. Yet, in so many other ways, she was so like him. Her mannerisms, her deeply caring nature – these were the things they shared. Justin adored his feisty, funny daughter. He would kill to protect her, Alicia knew that to be true. She hoped Sophie knew that she would, too. That she knew in her heart that her mother loved her with all of herself, no matter what else happened.

Sophie nodded, and gave her a small, tremulous smile.

‘You’re a beautiful, special person and I love you very much. Never forget that, Sophie,’ Alicia whispered, squeezing her into a firm hug.

Sophie hugged her hard back, and Alicia felt her heart hitch in her chest. It was enough, that hug, to sustain her. She would get through this. Somehow, her legs would carry her. She would keep standing. Sophie would need her to. And Justin, her husband, a good, honest man, who would never knowingly hurt anyone… Whatever the future held, he needed her now, and she would be there.

‘Ready?’ he said softly, behind her.

Bracing herself to face the worst day of her life, alongside the two people who mattered most in the world, Alicia nodded and turned to him, her gaze dropping from the immeasurable heartbreak in his eyes down to his tie. It was slightly askew, she noticed. She imagined his hands shaking as he’d tied it. Instinctively, Alicia reached to straighten it, another intimate gesture between them that sent an unbearable wave of sadness right through her. He used to smile when she fixed his tie – that languid, slow smile that would make her fingers all thumbs – and then invariably steal a kiss. He’d tugged it loose once, a glint in his eyes that told Alicia they were both going to be late for work.

Alicia dropped her gaze. She couldn’t bear it, the hurt she could now see there.

Justin surprised her, reaching to gently lift her chin, so that she had no option but to look directly at him. ‘We’ll find a way through this, Ali,’ he said, his voice hoarse. ‘We have to.’

Pressing his forehead to hers, he tugged in a ragged breath.

Feeling his hand softly tracing the length of her back, Alicia moved towards him, threaded her arms around him and held him tight. He needed her to. And she needed it too.

They stayed like that for one long, precious moment, before someone tapped on the front door. She felt Justin stiffen, pulling himself upright as he eased away from her, turning to face the insufferable heartache to come.