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scenario, you get to keep the rock; best-case scenario, you end up with the love of your life!’
    ‘I don’t have to wait or have a long engagement. Mark
is
the love of my life, he is so gorgeous and he feels the same, we just know.’
    ‘How do you “just know”? Do you remember how much you loved jacket potatoes when you were little and then you discovered pasta and
that
became your favourite? Maybe Mark is your jacket potato?’
    ‘Oh for God’s sake, he is not my jacket potato! I can’t explain it, but we
do
know. Mark says why wait if we have found what we would only spend our future searching for. It would be like wasting years, only to reach the conclusion that we were right all along!’
    ‘Well, mate, when you put it like that!’
    ‘I know you’re taking the mick out of me, but I don’t care, Fran, not tonight.’
    ‘Katie, I am pleased for you, but can’t you just have a nice little love affair and see if it wears off? Just in case?’
    ‘Mark says we should jump in while the water’s warm!’
    ‘“Mark says”, “Mark says…”. Blimey, Katie, you want to be careful there.’
    ‘What do you mean, “be careful”? Why?’
    She couldn’t hide the slight irritation in her voice; she was in the first stages of love and any negativity directed at the object of her desire felt like daggers being plunged into her heart.
    ‘Because you are a strong, smart girl and I don’t want you to lose any bit of yourself, ever. No man is worth that.’
    This was a phrase that Kathryn replayed in her mind many times in the coming years. She should have listened to her baby sister, wise and prophetic beyond her years. She wished she had listened.
    She replayed it now as she studied the hand-painted mug in her hand. ‘
I don’t want you to lose any bit of yourself, ever
.’ What would she say to her sister now? She imagined trying to phrase the words. They saw each other so infrequently that when they did meet up, there was always an awkward hour or so when they had to relearn how to act in the other’s company. It was so different from being with a friend or a colleague; being with a sister was unique.
    It didn’t matter what either of them achieved or how much time passed, it was hard for Kathryn to play the role of contented grown-up, to deceive. Not when they shared so much history. Francesca knew her sister back to front, inside out. There were so many fond memories that they used to retell over and over until they became hysterical with laughter. Kathryn’s favouritewas about one night during a childhood holiday, the two of them top-to-toeing in a rusty Cornish caravan, aged six and eight. They had eaten so much chocolate that Kathryn threw up out of the window, only to discover that the window was closed. Her parents spent the best part of the next day hosing Caramac from the velour interior of their rented home.
    Part of their awkwardness now was down to the fact that Mark never left them alone for a second; it was as if he was monitoring them, making them mindful of their conversation. He was careful to steer them onto topics that he felt were appropriate, and he was always slightly anxious until after her sister left. His nerves were not obvious to anyone else, but Kathryn noted that he spoke a little quicker than usual and laughed a little too loudly. He needn’t have been concerned; she could never have told. She would never have told.
    It was all too difficult. What would she like to say to her sister? ‘
You were right, Fran, I should have listened to you because I haven’t just lost a bit of myself, I have lost all of myself. I wish I’d listened to you, but I didn’t, did I?
’
    It was so easy with the wonderful gift of hindsight to be the judge and juror of her past decisions and choices. So easy to look at the person that made those decisions and the person that she had become and spot the cracks, pondering on how she might have done things differently.
Of course I should have