Charlotte was sitting at the kitchen table with both hands wrapped around a mug of tea, wearing clothes Sophie had never seen before — dark jeans, a simple cream top, her hair loose in a way she never used to wear it — and she looked, Sophie thought, stopping in the kitchen doorway, like herself.
She looked like a woman who had made a decision and was no longer afraid of it.
Margaret was on the other side of the table, a baking tin between them that no one had touched. She looked up when Sophie walked in. Charlotte looked up a half-second later.
The silence lasted exactly three seconds.
Then Charlotte set down her mug and said, very quietly: "Hello, Soph."
Sophie said nothing for a moment. She looked at her sister ,her own face, older in some way she couldn't precisely name, sitting
