Willow was steeling herself to break up with Harry when his mother called them for dinner.

“M’lady?” said Harry, taking her hand and leading her from his room.

Willow felt sick. Oh, Harry.

She felt worse when the tableau of the dinner table presented itself: Harry’s dear dad in that joke T-shirt she’d bought him last Christmas; Harry’s sister giving her puppy-dog eyes and tapping the empty seat beside her; Harry’s mum declaring, “Made your favourite, Wil!”

Taking her seat among them, they chatted and laughed as premonitions of grief – hers and theirs – caught in her throat.

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