A strange thing had happened to her in the last twenty-four hours, something she hadn't expected. When she thought about the girls and what the future might hold for them, her stomach churned and she felt a deep sense of unease, as if the world she had once stood so firmly on was tilting and swaying. She wondered if for the first time in her life she was having an actual gut feeling, about Louis Gregory. If her rarely utilized woman's intuition existed deep within her after all, and now it was kicking in, telling her to be cautious.

So before Tess had arrived Sophie had sat on the loo for a long time (just in case it was indigestion) and concentrated on the feeling. It had, she realized, taken her an amazingly short time to feel totally responsible for Carrie's children. She concluded that the churning of her stomach was genuine fear. She knew that somehow she would have an impact on how they were going to live the rest of lives and that it would be up to her, at least partially, whether they were happy. Sophie closed her eyes and tried to visualize Carrie the last time she had seen her, getting that train at Paddington Station, until she could see Carrie smiling at her. Sitting on the loo with her eyes shut, Sophie smiled back at her.

She couldn't say she loved the girls exactly, because she wasn't exactly sure what that felt like. But she realized that gradually she had begun to feel something for them, an almost new emotion that she had only experienced once before, when she saw Artemis alone in a pen at the shelter. It was a strong and immovable impulse to protect them from anything harmful. She knew then that she had to make sure they were going to be okay, that she would have to do whatever it took to ensure their happiness.

"Look," Tess said. "I promise you absolutely that I won't let you or the girls down. I'll put Louis through every mill going, and until then-"

"Until then," Sophie said almost casually as she directed her gaze back to the urban horizon, "those girls aren't going anywhere."

Thirteen.

I need a couple of minutes," Sophie said to Tess, patting her cheeks, which she knew had flared up during their conversation.

"Okay, you go and take some deep breaths, and then-Well, we might as well tell them, hadn't we?" Tess said, biting hard on her lip.

Sophie nodded and slipped past the girls, who had lost interest in the EastEnders omnibus and were in the process of making camp out of the sofa and the chair and Sophie's full-length leather coat. They both paused as she passed them, standing stock-still like a couple of meerkats expecting to be pounced on at any second by an enraged predator, but Sophie barely even glanced at her coat and offered them only an absent half smile as she headed to her bedroom.

"Right, now all we need is some tent pegs," she heard Bella say as she shut the door. She sat on her bed for a moment and stared across at the dressing table mirror. She thought about using her red-patches-green-cover-up-stick thing, but it had disappeared recently, quite probably another casualty of Izzy's apocalyptic attack on her makeup bag. Instead, she picked up a spray can of deodorant and held its cool, smooth surface against first one cheek and then the other.

As she sat on the bed, Sophie noticed a corner of pale pink material peeping out of her tightly shut closet. She opened the door, still clutching the deodorant to her face, and pulled the trapped garment free. It was a new dress that she had brought in the no-man's-land between Christmas and New Year's. She had bought it at the full price, 359 pounds, even thought she knew that less than a week later it would inevitably be half the price, because she had fallen in love with it instantly and because there was only one in her size. And she'd made a mental note not to go back to that shop until at least April so she wouldn't see how much the reduction was. Sophie didn't normally spend that much money on dresses-although, to be fair, she needed party dresses a lot more than most people-and she had never even heard of the designer, Shelli somebody. But for some reason that dress, with its twenties-style soft pink chiffon shift sliding over its deep pink silk underslip, had appealed to the closet romantic in her. She loved the four tiny velvet-covered buttons at the scoop neck and the extravagant beadwork, hundreds of beads on the fabric that radiated from the princess waist and flared into a handkerchief hemline. It was the kind of dress girls wore in musicals when dancing with their true loves for the first time under the light of the silvery moon. Plus, it was very flattering around the hips.

Sophie had been secretly looking forward to wearing it this week, at the Madison Corporation's New Year's party, which she had been so painstakingly organizing for Jake, and before Jake had announced quite plainly that he was attracted to her, she had been looking forward to him seeing her wear it and wondering whether it would make him notice her as a woman.

Unlike most corporate seasonal parties, it didn't fall on or as near to the actual holiday as possible, when nobody would really want to come anyway, but had been scheduled, rather cleverly Sophie thought, mainly because it was her idea, at almost the end of January. For exactly the time when all everybody could see was another long gray year exactly the same as the last year stretching out remorselessly ahead of them and a party was just what they needed. Jake had wanted it to be extravagant, a flagship event, and Sophie had made sure that it was going to be. It was Cal, though, who had found a venue which could make that requirement literally come true; a first-class ocean liner that was docked at Tower Bridge for a week every two months with a full-scale ballroom and top-notch catering staff that were occasionally available to hire for the right price. Guests could even book a berth for the night.

Ever since Cal had discovered it, they had both been waiting for the right client with the right schedule and the right budget to book it, too afraid to tell anyone, even Lisa, in case the idea somehow got leaked and someone else got the credit. The Madison Corporation was that client, and the event was going to be magical. It was the first party in ages that Sophie had actually been excited about.

Unconsciously, she marked the passing of time by the events she created and by what she wore to them. That dress had been hanging in her wardrobe silently ticking like a kind of alarm clock, counting down the routine days until something different and mildly thrilling happened.

Now, Sophie realized, the party, the bright pinnacle in her diary for weeks and weeks, didn't really matter anymore. It might boost her promotion chances. Jake would still be impressed by her looking blond and lightly fake-tanned in dusty pink. But the excitement a of wearing a floaty dress and matching satin shoes had somehow faded. Sophie fingered the edge of the material and took a breath as she hung the dress back in her wardrobe.

"Never mind," she told herself, patting her considerably cooled cheeks. "It won't be long before frocks and parties are the highlight of your life again." Except that, as Sophie padded back to the living room, where she heard Tess and the girls laughing, she had to admit she wasn't exactly sure if she wanted that to be true.

Tess had positioned the girls side by side in Artemis's armchair, where they sat wriggling and elbowing each other reflexively. As Sophie left her bedroom, Artemis had appeared through the open window and slunk past her, taking up her new favorite position on the arm of the chair by Bella's side. She ducked and tilted her head for Bella, who scratched her ears obligingly, and gave Sophie her usual glare.

"Well, here we are," Tess said, beaming at the girls.

It was exactly the same smile that she had offered to Sophie just before announcing Carrie's death. She really had to work on her delivering-important-news face, Sophie thought. She made it look like you were about to find out that you'd somehow won the lottery even though you never play, not that your world was about to be tipped upside down-again. Bella knows, Sophie thought, watching the girl narrow her dark eyes at Tess. She recognizes that smile.

"You two have had a lot to cope with, haven't you in the last few months?" Tess's smile widened.

"Yes, we have!" Izzy sang in agreement, assuming her grown-up face.

Bella nodded and crossed her arms.

Sophie looked at each girl's expression and felt an unfamiliar tightening in her chest.

"I know you've been moved about a lot, one place to another, and I know that..." Tess paused and rubbed her knees with her palms, making a rasping noise over her tights. "I know that you must miss Mummy very much."

"I do," Izzy said sadly, her narrow shoulders slumping. "I do, but she can't come back, because Aunty Sophie said she was in the sky, which is very far."

Bella put her spare arm heavily around Izzy's shoulders, pushing her slightly deeper into the cushion of the chair with the weight of her embrace.

"And you both have been very brave and very good. Aunty Sophie has told me how especially good you have been since you came to stay with her."

Sophie, Bella, and Izzy all looked at Tess with openmouthed disbelief.

"Well, mainly good, anyway," Tess said, hurrying along. "And you like it here, don't you?"

"I like the telly," Izzy said, brightening a little bit. "And I used to like chicken nuggets, but I don't anymore. I think I'd like fish fingers next and carrots. We used to have carrots, didn't we, Bella?" Bella nodded. "We had loads of butter on them so they wouldn't be too yucky." Bella nodded again. "Orange food is my favorite actually," Izzy finished.

"Tess," Sophie said, sort of under her breath, "just get to the point."

"So girls," Tess said, reinstating her beam. "Do you remember your daddy?"

"No," Bella said quickly. "We don't."

"I don't," Izzy agreed. "I haven't got a daddy, have I?" she asked with genuine curiosity. "Or a grandpa? Or...a dog?"

"Well, actually, Izzy you have-got a daddy, I mean."

Izzy's face transformed into a picture of pure delight and surprise, which Sophie would have been moved by if she hadn't seen her use exactly the same expression when she was confronted with a pair of her damp pants that she had cunningly slipped behind one of the last remaining sofa cushions the last time she hadn't quite made it to the loo.

"Oooh, Bella-we're getting a daddy!" she said, drumming her heels against the base of the armchair.

"No, we're not, Iz. Our dad's not around anymore. He left home when she was a baby," Bella said carefully to Tess, jerking her head sideways at her sister.

"Well, yes, I know, darling," Tess said. "But guess what? Your daddy is coming back to see you! And maybe, if you want it, girls, you might go and live with your daddy!" Tess clapped her hands together, and Izzy jumped off the armchair and began spinning. "Hoo-ray! Hoo-ray! Hooo-ray!" she shouted as she pirouetted.

"No he is not!" Bella stood up and shouted over her sister so that the younger girl stopped and stood stock-still. "He is not coming back here and I don't want to see him and she doesn't want to see him and we don't want him so if he comes here you can just tell him to go away again because nobody likes him or wants him!" She ran out of the room, slamming first the living room and then the flat door behind her.

"Oh, fuck," Sophie said, leaping over the back of the sofa after her with an athleticism she hadn't known she possessed.

Tess looked at Izzy, who returned her gaze standing perfectly still. After a moment, she unfroze herself by sheer force of will and crossed over to Tess, putting her hands on the social worker's knees. "She's not supposed to say fuck in front of us, is she?"

Mercifully, Bella had not opened the door onto the street and run under a bus, as Sophie had momentarily feared. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the girl huddled at the bottom of the stairs and walked slowly down to join her.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"Yes." Bella lied badly, her voice slightly muffled through a layer of purple fleece.

Sophie brushed a locked of Bella's black hair away from her cheek and tucked it behind her ear. "I'm sorry, I knew it would be a shock and everything, but I really thought you'd be pleased..." This was true. She had just assumed the girls would leap into Louis's arms whether or not he was decent father material. It had never occurred to her that they might not want him.

"I'm not pleased," Bella said, turning her face a little so that Sophie could see one eye and half of her mouth.

Hesitantly, Sophie reached out her palm and rubbed Bella's back. "I can see that," she said with half a smile. "But, well, do you remember your dad at all, Bella?"

Bella sat up and brushed her hair out of her face a few times. "Yes," she said darkly. "I was a bit older than Izzy when he...he just went."

Sophie tried to frame the million or so questions she had into one that was manageable for a girl of six and a bit. "Well, was he unkind to you or to Mummy, was he mean? I mean, did he ever...hurt you?" she asked carefully. To her huge relief, Bella shook her head.

"No," she said. "But he went away, didn't he? He left us all alone. He didn't come back. He didn't even say good-bye to me, and I thought...I thought he was my friend. He used to say I was his best friend. After that, Mum said we didn't need him. We didn't need any man to look after us because we looked after each other-we were the Three Musketeers." Bella stared at her knees.

Sophie tried again. "I know that this must be hard, Bella, but well...he is coming all this way to see you-that must mean something. And when I told him-"

"You told him?" Bella said quickly, looking up at Sophie.

"Yes," Sophie confessed. "When I told him what had happened, he said he'd come straightaway, as soon as he could." Sophie pushed her own misapprehensions to one side. "So he must care about you to do that, musn't he?" Bella did not move, so Sophie continued. "And well, you are going to need a proper place to live soon, and I just thought it would be better if it was with-"

"We've got a proper place." Bella stared at Sophie with a deep furrow between her brows.

Sophie blinked at her and winced internally. She hadn't expected this.

"We live here, don't we?" Bella said. "With you? You said at that day-care place we could stay with you."

Sophie took her hand away from Bella's shoulder and dropped her head. It hadn't occurred to her that Bella might have thought her stay in the flat was anything other than temporary, and that her promise at the childminder's was more general than specific.

"Aren't we staying here with you?" Bella said, looking worried. "Have we done something wrong again? I know we're naughty sometimes, but it's usually by accident and-"

Sophie shook her head and felt her chest tighten again. "It's not because you're naughty," she said gently. "Look, Bella, right now I don't know what's going to happen next because so much has happened already that I never expected. But you have to know that when you came here it was only supposed to be for a week or two..." Sophie stopped. "You're not supposed to live with me forever. You wouldn't want to in my silly little flat with no garden now, would you?"

"I wouldn't mind," Bella said. "Will we have to move again?" Her voice dwindled away to almost nothing.

Sophie looked at her tiny frame, so stiff and resilient, and she wanted to say something, anything to make Bella feel happier and more secure. But she couldn't lie to her, not now, even if comforting lies were what the girl wanted to hear. She and Izzy deserved the truth.

"Yes," Sophie said softly. "I'm sorry, Bella."

"With who then?" Bella's face was ashen under the bright hall light, her voice small and feather light. "With Dad? Strangers like the childminder?"

Sophie cursed herself inwardly. Just as she thought she was getting the hang of communicating with Bella, she went and put her foot in it. She felt her ineptitude all too keenly.

"All you've been through-it must be so hard for your, Bella," she said eventually, sidestepping her question. "I think you're amazing. You cope so well when you must miss your mum so much-"

"I don't miss her," Bella said. "I can't miss her. I haven't got time, you see, because since she went away everything keeps changing and just when I think it's going to be okay it changes again and I have to get used to all new things and I have to be in charge of worrying about what's going to happen to us. Mummy told me that I was in charge when she wasn't around, of looking after Izzy I mean. I think..." Bella paused for a long moment. "If I start thinking about her and missing her, I'm afraid I won't be in charge anymore. I'll be too sad and then I'll forget to do anything else."

Sophie pulled Bella to her, impulsively wishing that she could draw all the pain out of her small body and absorb it. It was the first time she had really hugged her goddaughter.

"I do see," she said, thinking about the first months after her dad died. "I really do. But you know what? You don't have to be in charge. I know that you feel like you do-but you don't. You've got Tess and Grandma and me and even Artemis to do all the worrying and the looking after for you and Izzy. If you want to be sad, you won't be letting anyone down. Your mum wouldn't think so, not for a second." Sophie paused for a moment and thought very carefully about what she was about to say. "I don't know your dad, Bella. I don't know why he went and I don't know why he didn't keep in touch with you, but I do think you sort of have to give him a chance. Because he is after all your dad, and you said he did used to be your friend."

"But what if he's horrible to us?"

"Well, if he is, then you don't have to live with him. You don't have to do anything you and Izzy aren't happy with, okay? Everyone is here to make sure that you and Izzy are happy and safe."

Bella looked up at Sophie, her dry eyes burning. "But what will we do then?" she asked. "If we can't stay here?"

There had to be a moment like this, Sophie thought, in everyone's life, when the very next thing you say might change you and the world as you knew it forever. She felt her stomach dip and churn as if she had just run headlong at a cliff edge and brought herself to a stop at its very brink.

"Then we'll work out what's best," she answered, feeling like a coward unable to deliver the promise that Bella wanted.

"What's best?" Bella said dimly, staring down at her feet again.

"Yes," Sophie said.

Bella sat up a little and lifted her chin to look at Sophie. "Okay," she said with a look of weary resignation that should never have visited her young face. "Okay, Aunty Sophie."

There had to be something, Sophie thought, some promise she could make to Bella and Izzy that she absolutely knew she could keep. Some promise that could give the children something solid to rely on.

"Bella, I've been flaky, I know I have," she said. "Dragging you to the office and back. Making you watch TV all day long, not knowing what to feed you and then just feeding you one thing, but please believe me when I say I want you to have the best and happiest life you can. I really, really do. And you just wouldn't have that with me-would you?" Bella blinked at her and said nothing. "But I promise you-whatever happens, I'll be on your side. I'll stick by you and Izzy. I'll never let you down. I promise. Always, forever, whatever." Sophie said the three words on an impulse and sat back a little as Bella's eyes widened.

"How did you know?" she asked, resting her cheek against Sophie's arm with a sudden touching display of affection that Sophie had not expected. She felt Bella's breath on her skin and kissed the top of Bella's head, and for a moment it felt as if there was something physical connecting them, a new closeness created on this bottom stair. She would never have known how to kiss Bella before that moment, and suddenly it seemed perfectly natural.

"Know what?" Sophie said to the top of her goddaughter's head.

"That's Mummy's special promise to us. Whenever she said 'Always, forever, whatever,' we knew-we knew that things were really, really true."

"Well then, you know that you can trust me," Sophie said, and Bella tightened their embrace.

It happened then, like a slow-turning circle finally completing itself. Sophie found that she was beginning to care more about what happened to Bella and Izzy than she cared about what happened to herself.

Fourteen.

What, nothing at all?" Tess said, attempting to stir some life into her forlorn cup of coffee as she sat at her desk.

"Nothing. Not a word," Sophie told her over the phone, sitting on what used to be her bed. "I mean, it's been..." She unfurled a finger for each day since she had spoken to Louis. "Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Five days if you count today. Five days. It doesn't take five days to get anywhere anymore unless you're walking. I mean, it's not as if he was in deepest, darkest Peru. Well, anyway, it doesn't take five days, does it?"

Tess sat back in her chair. "No, I wouldn't have thought so," she said. "But I suppose there are other considerations. Maybe he had to give notice at the charity-" Sophie barked a short laugh at the word charity. Tess waited for a moment to continue. "Maybe he couldn't get a flight or get the money for a flight. Have you thought about calling him again?"

Sophie glossed over that rather obvious idea. She didn't want to dial that number that had cost her fifty-five pounds an hour plus VAT and talk to him, because that would mean that he was still in deepest, darkest Peru which had implications she was aware of but not quite ready to think about yet.

"He said he was coming right away. He made it sound like he was going to leave right at that minute and get on a plane. And the girls are on edge. Bella is really upset about the whole thing, and Izzy goes mental every time the phone or doorbell rings. It's been a nightmare keeping them occupied."

"Well, TV does wear a bit thin after a while," Tess said.