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“I should have come home more,” she said eventually. “The first three Christmases without Gran were, well, I tried. I really did.” Her voice softened. “But it felt wrong. Like we were pretending it was the same when it wasn’t.” She shook her head slightly, struggling to find the right words to match her feelings. “It just felt like something was missing.”

“It was,” he said gently.

She swallowed. “Being away was simpler.”

“Distance is convenient like that,” he said.

A small, humourless breath left her as she nodded. It was true.

“I told myself you were fine. That you had your routines. The pub. Mandy.” She met his eyes properly. “I didn’t really think about what it was like for you. Doing Christmas anyway... and without me too.”

He rubbed a hand over his jaw. “It was quiet.”

Guilt flickered across her features. “I didn’t mean to leave you to carry all of it.”

“Think nothing of it.” He gave a small shrug. “I left you a lot more to carry with your gran than I should have.”

She wasn’t going to correct him this time, as she had in the graveyard. If he felt that, then she needed to let him.

“Yesterday,” she murmured, “didn’t feel hollow. It was full again. Like when I was growing up. Having people there. Voices.” A faint smile touched her lips. “It reminded me of how it used to be.”

He nodded slowly. “We always tried to make Christmas a big occasion when you were growing up. I suppose we wanted to compensate for your mum not being there. Maybe we made them too big.”

“I don’t think so. I loved them. We shouldn’t really compare. Every Christmas is special in its own way.”

“It is,” he said.

The sound of the kettle rumbling in the kitchen below made them both pause.

“That must be Mandy,” he said.

“Do you two want a cup of tea?” Mandy’s voice called up.

“Please!” they both shouted back.

They began opening boxes, Gran’s familiar lavender scent rising from each one as though she were close by. The smell wrapped itself around Lucie, making her chest ache in that comforting yet cruel way.

“What’s in here?” Lucie opened an old Quality Street tin. “Oh, it’s Gran’s old theatre programmes! I’d like to keep these.”

“Then do.”

The ladder creaked.

“Can one of you take these?” Mandy’s muffled voice came from the hatch.

Lucie shot across and took two steaming mugs from her, placing them on top of a box. Mandy disappeared, returning with another mug, and took the hand up Lucie offered her.

“Thanks,” Mandy said. She picked up one of the other mugs and held it out to Lucie’s dad. “Here, ‘Your Lordship’. I thought mine belonged with yours, so I brought it over.” She flashed her matching mug.

Lucie caught Mandy’s glance at her dad before biting her lip and passing it over.

“Don’t worry, I’ve told her,” he said. “Though apparently she already knew — she saw us yesterday.”

Mandy smirked at him, and he grinned back.

“I’m over the moon for you both,” Lucie said, although, she now realised, the pair of them acting like love-struck teenagers was going to take some adjusting to. “Let’s get cracking then, shall we?”

Opening a box revealed another tin filled with loose, black-and-white photographs of Gran as a girl. She was standing stiffly beside siblings Lucie had only ever heard about in passing, her hair pinned back neatly. There were grainy snapshots of dances in village halls with men in striped suits, women in print dresses, everyone smiling. It was strange to see Gran living in a completely different time.