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up her seven month old niece.
    ‘Hello, beautiful.’ Claire held Ava up to her face,
marvelling as she always did at how quickly her features were
changing. ‘She looks so different and I only saw her two weeks
ago.’
    Sarah smiled and slung the tea-towel over her
shoulder. ‘I know. She’s growing so quickly and her attitude’s
growing with it. She’s a proper little madam.’
    ‘I wonder who she gets that from,’ Adam said,
swilling his coffee in his cup.
    ‘Must be you. She gets all the best bits from me,’
Sarah replied.
    Claire blew raspberries into Ava’s neck, making her
squeal. What would her own child would be like, when she eventually
got round to having one? Would it inherit her thrill-seeking,
free-spirited nature, or the amber eyes that both she and Sarah
had? She held her niece in a hug. All this Christmas bonhomie was
clearly getting to her, just like it had in the supermarket. It was
easy to imagine herself all settled down when she was with Sarah
and Adam, getting a glimpse into how her life could be.
    Her mind turned to Danny. Their messages had been
fun and flirtatious, as had the others she’d swapped with guys on
Tinder but this time, she wasn’t just thinking about someone to add
to her list of casual encounters. When he’d texted her that
morning, wishing her a happy Christmas, she’d started to think that
it might be nice to have someone for more than just a fling.
Someone who’d be there when she got back from a trip, waiting for
her to snuggle up to, someone to share her Christmases with, like
Sarah had.
    ‘You’re so good with her,’ Sarah said with a smile.
‘I can’t wait to see you with one of your own.’
    That was the disadvantage of being a twin. Since
they’d grown closer, they always seemed to know what the other was
thinking, but Claire simply tutted and shook her head as if to say, don’t be so ridiculous.
    No boyfriends, no kids. She had an epic trip to
Singapore to look forward to and whatever this restless feeling
was, she needed to nip it in the bud.
     

 
Five
     
    Danny stood in the kitchen after washing the dishes.
He remembered the state the kitchen would be in after Christmas as
a kid. There’d be mountains of plates, pans, cutlery and glasses,
and his mum would almost be permanently attached to the sink. He
sighed and dried his hands on a tea-towel, looking at the apron
hanging on the back of the closed kitchen door, remembering how she
used to wear it like a uniform. Those Christmases were long gone.
From the minute his dad had uprooted the whole family to London
from the sleepy town of Athenry in Ireland, misery had decided it
liked their company.
    His phone buzzed in his pocket and he smiled after
unlocking the screen to see a photo of Claire, pulling a silly face
as she held her niece. They’d swapped messages on and off all
afternoon and it sounded like she was having a great Christmas. He
couldn’t say the same for himself. His dad had refused to entertain
the idea of spending the day at Danny’s spacious home, preferring
to stay in his cramped, gloomy flat instead. Danny had toyed with
the idea of trying to get his dad to move somewhere nicer again. He
could get another mortgage with no problems and it galled him to
think of his dad living like this, but he knew it was pointless.
His dad had vowed never to leave this place after his mum died five
years ago and Danny couldn’t see that ever changing.
    He made three cups of coffee, adding a slug of
whiskey for his grandpa and headed back into the living room. His
throat tightened at the sight of his dad, dozing on the sofa with
his grandpa next to him. Both men were widowed and both were mere
shadows of the men he remembered from his childhood. Was this what
life held for him - sitting in front of a box while the world moved
past outside?
    Dissatisfaction wrenched at him as he set the cups
down on the scuffed coffee table. It was as if his dad was intent
on simply existing instead of living as