A Family Gathering—Welcome Without Boundaries

A Family GatheringNo Borders on Entry

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“Goodness me…” murmured Susan, carefully lifting a shard of what had once been a fine Wedgwood vase, reluctant to simply toss it out. “Aunt Lydia, forgive me,” she whispered into the emptiness.

The flat still smelled of shampoo, sparkling wine, and for some reason, oranges, though no one had peeled any last night, as far as she recalled. Behind the settee, a plastic garland, dusted with glitter, lay forlorn on the carpet. In the drawer beneath the coffee table, she found a silk scarf, knotted with the words “Hen Do to Remember” blazoned in swirling pink.

And beneath the radiator, shyly tucked away, rested a lone pink rubber glove, its bow sad and threadbare. It looked as though it had tried to escape the revelry and got stuck in the attempt.

Susan, dressed in a rumpled dressing gown with a battered old tassel, wandered the room carrying a black bin bag. Each step crunched on toffee wrappers discarded throughout the night.

On the window sill, a wine glass stood proudlyat the bottom, a crusted puddle of ruby red wine. In the vase, instead of flowers, three plastic straws sprouted, each topped with a sparkling star. A paper garland of hearts stretched along the wallpaperone heart, it must be said, obviously bitten.

The kitchen loomed as a challenge of its own.

Atop the table, a forlorn half of a three-tiered cake slumped sadly. The icing was sliding off like thawing snow, and at its side, two candles, a “3” and an “8,” leaned at impossible anglesthe occasion, supposedly, “just a girls night,” not anyones birthday.

In the sink, lipstick-smeared glasses stood shivering, lined beside saucers with dried humus clinging to them. On a dining chair, a deck of fortune-telling cards was scatteredhalf face up, half face down, as if a prophecy had gone embarrassingly awry.

***

Susan picked up a card absentmindedlythe King of Diamonds, giving her a weary, condescending stare. Last night the girls spread these cards to divine future nuptials, house moves, and mysterious foreigners. They whispered, then burst into loud peals of laughter, washing down predictions with fizz.

She bent to retrieve a bit of glitter and unexpectedly tugged something soft from beneath the settee. Lacy hosiery, with its band torna trophy from stool-top dancing, no doubt. With a shake of her head, Susan drifted into the quieter bedroom.

There, at least, was some semblance of order. Except, perhaps, three pillows strewn on the floor and the duvet balled up like a giant snails shell. She smoothed her pillow on the bed, uncovering a folded piece of pink paper beneath it.

Her heart clenched unpleasantly.

Perhaps another forgotten note from some “Andrew from the pub” to one of Helens friends? But the writing was familiarlarge, ever so slightly crooked, and each “o” dutifully transformed into a little balloon by Helens hand.

“Youre the best hostess in the world! Hels”

Susans eyes lingered on the exclamation mark. It felt as if it shivered just slightly. She half smiled, crookedly. “The best hostess” with her aunts broken vase and glitter in the shower, where every mornings rinse now became a display of fireworks.

“How many times have I promised myselfnever again”, she muttered, lowering herself onto the edge of the bed.

***

Something squished unpleasantly beneath her foot.

Susan shuddered, pulled off her slipper, and discovered, set within it, a perfectly whole clementine. Its skin was glossy and smooth, with a scrap of paper pinned to it by a cocktail stick: “for a sweet life.”

Yesterday, she and the girls laughed at this toast. Now, the clementine seemed almost mocking.

Her mobile buzzed on the nightstand. The screen flashed: “Helen (Our Hurricane).”

“Of course,” Susan said to the empty room, but answered anyway, clearing her throat. “Hello?”

“Suuusie!” The phone was so loud it sounded as though the party had simply continued somewhere else. “Youre a goddess! Honestly. The girls are in raptures! Sally the manicurist still hasnt gone home, we cant get over how you chased the wardrobe ghost!”

In the background, someone cackled and shouted, “Tell Susan Ill only have my babies at her house now!”followed by renewed laughter.

“Thanks, Sue,” Helen added, more warmly. “Really you know what I mean. Your place is just home.”

Susan stared at the clementine in her slipper.

“Yeah,” she said. “Feels just like home”

“Right, Ill leave you be! Rest up, you queen of canapés!”and the line clicked back to silence.

***

Susan removed her glasses, set them beside Helens note. In the wardrobes mirror, she caught sight of herselfa woman of about fifty, deeply tired, but with unexpectedly lively green eyes, hair bundled hurriedly andyesa persistent fleck of glitter in the locks.

The phone chimed again, now with the gentle melody of a video call. “Tess”her daughter.

Susan sighed, ran a hand through her hair, but the glitter refused to budge.

“Yes, darling?” She accepted the call. Tess appeared on screen, fringe askew, hands wrapped around a coffee mug.

“Mum!” Tess squinted. “Aha. Thought so. Glitter on the cat again?”

“On me, this time,” Susan corrected. “The cat hid after all the card-dancing last night. Must be in the linen drawer again”

She described the details to her daughter.

“Mum,” Tess grinned, then suddenly grew serious. “Do you hear yourself? The cat hides, Wedgwoods in bits, clementines in slippers Can you ever actually say no to Helen?”

Susan heard the gentle swing between affection and exasperation in Tesss tone.

“Shes she struggles, you know that,” Susan said automatically.

“And what about your own struggles?” Tess interrupted gently. “When did you last rest? Not host, just rest?”

Susans gaze lingered on the pink glove under the radiator, the note beside her, the empty flat still full of last nights laughter.

“I dont know,” she replied, honestly. “Its like Ive crawled under the wardrobe too. With the cat.”

Tess chuckled.

“Mum, I love you. But really, maybe next time, its just you and me, tea and peace. No fortune telling or glitter.”

The screen froze a heartbeat, then returned. A pause hung between them, unsaid.

“Well see,” Susan said.

But for the first time in years, “well see” felt less like a polite “yes, Helen,” and more like the beginning of something new.

***

The first time Helen visited Susan “just because” was one early spring, the world outdoors still under a grey chill, while on Susans window sill timid green shoots surrendered to feeble sunlight.

“Sue! Open upI come in peace! And with pie!” Helens voice bellowed in the hall, even before shed rung the bell.

Susan let her in. Helen blasted down the corridor, barely pausing to remove her boots, wielding an enormous pie tin.

“Proper home-made cabbage pie, like Gran used to” Not waiting for an answer, Helen bustled into the kitchen. “Your hallway! Honestly. Looks like the front cover of Country Living!”

Susan blushed sheepishly, tweaking her neatly folded scarf on its peg. Her two-bedroom council flat was her quiet pride: curtains matched the wallpaper, a crocheted blanket across the sofastill her mothers handiwork. The kitchen gleamed white and wood, windowsills crowded with flowers.

“Really cosy,” everyone said, and Susan felt those words a hard-earned badge.

“Go on. Jacket off,” she said, taking the pie. “Blimey, its heavy.”

“Like my life,” Helen laughed, but her eyes sparkled. “Listen, Sue, I was thinkingover at mine, its pokey, kitchens tiny, and that lad upstairs shouts, the one below drills the whole time. But here”

She spun in the open-plan lounge, where Susans small round table and broad window-seat beckoned.

“Here, youve air to breathe! Its criminal to sit here alone. How about a little get-together?” she asked. “Just us, and two of my girlsyoull love them. Theyre a laugh!”

Criminal to sit aloneSusan felt the phrase prick her heart.

She remembered long evenings spent on that sofa, TV murmuring, her knitting needles working overtime, Tess away at hers, relatives remembering her only on public holidays.

“A little gathering?” Susan repeated. “Well why not. Ive got pie, after all,” she grinned, feigning cheerfulness.

Helens eyebrows lifted in delight.

“You mean it? Honest, Sue, I brought the pie as a bribeI thought youd need persuading!” She laughed. “Right, Saturday then? No occasion, call itpractice for the hen do.”

Susan switched the oven on, the pie warming as Saturday loomed, a distant maybe.

“Alright,” she said. “Saturday. Ill make a little something.”

“Sue, youre a gem!” Helen squeezed her so tight Susans ribs popped. “Were basically sisters!”

That “basically” sounded odd, but Susan swallowed it down with a future mouthful of pie.

***

Easter, that year, they also spent at Susans. It was Helens idea, naturally.

“Sues place is the proper home!” shed announce to all whod listen. “Her Simnel cakes a work of art, her eggs are like a photoshoot. And her cat parades around, keeping watch!”

Truth was, the cata striped tabby named Mollylooked more bored guard than stately matron, but “parades” sounded grander.

Helen didnt turn up alone, but with three friends in tow.

Susan, used only to quiet family dinners, was thrown when all three tumbled into her hallway at once: the loud ginger in a sunshine mac, a towering brunette in leather, and a dainty brown-haired lass with a booming laugh.

“This is Linda, thats Erica, and heres Molly,” Helen waved. “Ladies, this is The Susanalways welcoming, always delicious!”

Susan hurried them in, offering slippers and showing where to hang coats. Mentally she checkedenough chairs, two cakes, eleven eggs, plenty of salad, a cold cut for formality.

It wasnt nearly enough. An hour later, amidst debate over “genuine marzipan glaze,” Helen whipped out her phone.

“Oh, I forgot! Cathy and Yasmin are just round the cornerIll text them. Sue, you dont mind? Theyll bring their own eggs!”

Susan opened her mouth to object, but the oven pinged plaintively, and she darted off to check the cakes. When she returned, names shed never heard were already en route.

***

In no time, the celebration became a bustling fairground.

The girls squabbled over whose dough was “old-fashioned” and who had baked “on a proper Aga.” To prove her point, Linda picked up the bowl of chocolate glaze, gave it an emphatic swirl, and sent brown splatters arcing across Susans white tablecloth.

“Oh!” Linda froze, sheepish.

“Its a sign of fortune?” someone ventured.

Helen burst into laughter, the others following suit. Susan dabbed at the stain with a napkinbut too late, it had seeped in.

“Never mind,” she said. “Itll come out in the wash.”

At that moment, Helen shot her a glancewarm, grateful. As if Susan had not just saved a tablecloth, but the world itself.

By evening, the sill was loaded with painted eggs, a wreath of paper napkins hung on the wall, and a pair of sandals slouched beneath the table. Helen, raising her glass with wine, solemnly declared:

“Ladies! Its officialSusans house is the only place for a proper celebration!”

Everyone applauded. Susan blushed, feeling this “proper celebration” reverberate somewhere beneath her ribs. It was as if her tidy kitchen and careful sofa had somehow become the stage for something larger and, yes, important.

***

As a girl, it wasnt this way. Back then, the “proper celebration” was always at Helens.

Helen was born a leadersociable, noisy, even brazen, but irresistibly magnetic.

All the children gathered outside her building: fashion shows in her mothers robe, secret clubs under the stairs. Even the pensioners in the block called her “our little celebrity.”

Susan, always careful and nearly invisible, was the opposite. She returned home promptly, never dog-eared library books, and wiped her shoes till they shone.

“Sue, youre our star pupil,” said Aunt Lydia, Susans mothers sister and Helens mum. “Sit with Helen so she might learn a thing or two.”

By their teens, their paths diverged. Helen came home early with tales of discos and drama, while Susan went to technical college, then studied evenings, landed in accounting, and lived quietly. Cousins met rarelyusually only at family Christmases and birthdays.

Then Aunt Lydia died. The funeral, the wake, tired faces and old wounds surfacing. For the first time, the cousins sat up on Susans kitchen floor till three, fighting sadness with sugary tea.

“Its like the flat died with Mum,” Helen said, staring into her mug. “I dont know how anything works without her.”

Susan, now four years an orphan herself, quietly replied, “It just works differently. Not betternot worse. Just new.”

After that, they phoned more often. At first, it was businesssorting through who got what, how to sign the papers. Then just to ask, to chat.

Gradually, Helen drew Susan into her current, as a leaf swept into a whirlpool.

“Are we to live as parallel relatives?” Helen would protest. “No! Im coming to yours, you to mine!”

But somehow, Susan never quite made it to Helens. Always work, always Tess, always just tired. Yet Helen visited Susan ever more frequently.

***

Slowly, “at Susans” became a universal solution.

“Gals, come on, its always at Susans,” Helen would say, flicking through her diary. “No one wants to trek to mine. My kitchens a broom cupboard, Sues got open-planits influencer heaven!”

“Wheres New Years then?” friends would ask.

“At Susans! The fairy lights go round the room, and her potato salad is like a work of art!”

“Easter?” “Susans.”

“Mollys birthday?” “Susans, obviouslyher tables perfect.”

“Girls night in?” “Where else but Susans? Cosy and delicious every time.”

At first, Susan felt flattered.

Her neat home suddenly the heart of someone elses story; she relished choosing new napkins, testing recipes, hearing Helens friends marvel at her plates.

But, over time, it crowded in. Guests arrived not only by Helens invitation.

“Hi Susan! Linda here, we were at your place with Helen last night, remember? We were thinking to pop overEricas got news, Helens busy at the salon. Are you in?”

Once, when the bell rang three times in a week, Susan opened the door to a woman she instantly recognised.

NadineHelens childhood friend, who years before had unfairly accused Susan of spreading gossip, shaming her in front of everyone. Theyd avoided each other since.

“Oh, hi,” Nadine said, fiddling with her hair, hesitantly. “Helen said the partys at yours can I come early to help?”

Susan stood there, old shame crawling from her feet to her throat. She wanted to say, “Helens wrong, Im not expecting anyone.” But, instead, she stepped aside.

“Come in,” she said. “Would you like tea?”

The dish towel in her grip twisted tight, like rope.

***

Her first act of resistance felt childish.

“Want to spoil everyones mood? Buy cheap biscuits,” she told herself one day.

Usually, Susan bought signature shortbread from the local bakerycrisp, buttery, with the faint tang of clotted cream. This time, she deliberately bypassed it, heading for the supermarket to grab ordinary value biscuits, the sort that disintegrated at a glance.

“Lets see how they like real life at Susans,” she thought grimly, pouring the packet into a bowl.

Of course, the party was still a hit. Helens friends chomped bad biscuits along with happy news. Someone brought cheese, another olivesHelen provided her classic “tomatoes in aspic.”

At one point, Mollythe laughing onehung her chunky plastic beads on the door handle and forgot to take them. The next morning, Susan found them dangling on her pristine white door. She meant to toss them into the “found” bag, but the bell sounded again.

“Susan!” Helen barrelled in, before invitation. “Ohbeads! You even have parties on your door handles!”

Susan wanted to protest, “Its not a party. Its a mess.” But Helens delight was so genuine, Susan simply sighed:

“A party”

And the party refused to leave.

***

The “fortune-telling hen night” Helen later planned was something else entirely.

“Alright, ladies, were peering into our futures tonight,” shed announced on the group chat, stealth-adding Susan in. “Sue, youll be Oracle-in-Chiefat your place, even the kettles in on the secrets.”

Susan glanced at her old lime-encrusted kettle. “Oracle,” indeed.

One guest, that same Linda, showed up with a Taro deck, a chunky candle, and a little gilt mirror.

“This isnt just wine and nibbles,” she intoned. “Tonights a séance. We summon spirits!”

Susan laughed nervously.

“Which ones, Linda? Only stew-spirits linger round here.”

“Not stew!” Helen retorted. “Sue, lighten up. Its just fun.”

They dimmed the lights, candles casting gold shadows round the room. Molly, always near the radiator, eyed the scene from the sill, tail puffed.

Linda laid out the cards, angled the mirror so everyones faces reflected.

“Well put questions to the universe,” she hissed.

Susan sat on the settees edge, feeling oddly surplus at her own celebration. She watched the flickering flame slide shadows over the girls faces. All those whispered hopeslove, finances, far-away citiessomehow always brushing past her own life.

Then, as if to cue, the electrics flickered, then diedone lamp, then another. Suddenly, the flat was dark.

“Oh!” someone yelped.

“Its a sign!” Linda whisperedthe girls burst into delighted squeals.

Susan instinctively reached for her mobile torch just as a shadowy lump darted past. Molly, overwhelmed, shot through the room and vanishedin the wardrobe with a bang, door slamming behind.

“Suits me,” Susan groaned. “Plenty of spirits in my wardrobe.”

The lights winked on again minutes latera neighbour had tripped the fuse box with a welding kit. But Molly stayed barricaded in the wardrobe for a whole daySusan heard nothing but muted scratches and mournful “mrrr” from the depths of the linen shelves.

When the cat finally slunk back out, dusty and haughty, Susan scratched her behind the ears: “Well, Molly, shall we hide out together?”

The cat sniffed, silent, and trotted off to the kitchenwhere abandoned glitter still gleamed on the tiles.

***

Susan hesitated a long while.

She perched at the kitchen table, staring at her phonea blank message box blinking, the cursor a jittery tick.

Her fingers typed: “Helen, next time, host at yours.” She deleted it at once.

She tried others:

“Helen, I cant keep doing this”

“Helen, lets skip parties at mine for a while”

“Helen, Im tired of guests, seriously.”

Every message felt either too soft or too harsh. Helens litany rang in her thoughts”Sue, you understand,” “Well, youre the kind one,” “You dont mind, do you?”

She took a deep breath, set the phone down and stepped into her reflection. The light flickered above, shadowing her face. She picked up a brush but, instead of fixing her hair, she looked herself in the eye and said:

“Helen, next time, you host.”

Her voice trembled, like strings on a too-worn violin. She grimaced.

“No excuses,” Tesss voice reminded her, somewhere in memory. “Youre allowed.”

Susan stood tall, shoulders back as though readying for the stage.

“Helen,” she tried again, meeting her gaze in the mirror. “I love our evenings. But Im tired of parties in my home. Next timeat yours.”

She faltered, voice shading back to apology.

“No buts,” she checked herself. “Im not an apologetic department.”

Back at the phone, she typed:

“Helen, Im honestly worn out. Next time, lets celebrate at yours? I need a break from hosting.”

Her finger hovered, heart twisted with the old fearof loss, of causing offence. That old refrain: “There, I knew you were dull.”

She hit send and set the phone aside.

“Now comes the real conversation,” she murmured. “Face-to-face.”

Before the mirror, she rehearsed several times.

“Helen, this is my home, I find it hard with all the people”

“Helen, I love you, but I am not a venue for everyone”

“Helen, lets set boundaries.”

At the word “boundaries,” her voice thinned, emotion clogging her throat. In the mirror she didnt see a grand mistress of her home, only a woman learning to say “no”a word so foreign it seemed to stick between her teeth.

Yet, by the fourth or fifth attempt, a new note entered her reflectionnot anger nor exhaustion, but resolve. Quiet, but stubborn.

“Alright,” she told her morning face in the glass. “Time to visit her. Not as hostess. As guestas witness.”

***

Susan set off for Helens flat, deliberately unannounced.

“If she can show up at mine with cake and friends, no warning, then so can I,” Susan thought. “Not as the hostess, but as her guest. As her witness.”

Helens building was the old council typehigh ceilings, plaster flaking in the stairwell, post boxes stuffed with adverts. Once, Susan adored these old blocks for “history.” Now the air reeked of damp and stale tobacco.

No lift, of course, so she trudged up broad stone stairs, eyes on the worn steps. On the third half-landing came that overpowering tangcheap air freshener, overlaid with old soup.

Helens door was unmistakable, with a wonky faux-laurel wreath and a wooden sign”Here lives a miracle.” Once, Susan found it sweet. Now it seemed sad, a childs hope.

She knocked. Silence. She pressed the bell, which groaned a tired trill. After a pause, tired footsteps shuffled behind the door.

“Whos there?”

“Its me. Susan.”

Locks clanked, as if the door itself had second thoughts. At last, it cracked open.

Helens face appeared, shielded behind the door, one scruffy trainer off, the other in her hand. Hair a messy bun, eyes puffy.

“Sue? You no warning?”

“Do you ever call ahead at mine?” Susan replied evenly.

Helen blinked, then moved aside in surrender.

The flat hit you not with décor, but emptinessa cold void you felt in your chest.

No “welcome” here; no rug, no shoe rack. A mop stick propped against the wall, battered boots, one court shoe. A dried spill on the floorboards.

Susans heart twisted as she walked through.

The lounge was furnished with a single sofa, its green worn to grey. Clothesdresses, jeans, shirtstumbled carelessly across it, a tide left by some vanished sea.

On the floor, empty wine bottles, energy drink cans, a magazine with its cover torn off. A laptop on a stool; an overflowing ashtray close by.

Beneath the table, there were two mugs. One upended, its contents dried into a brown circle on the linoleum. The other teetered on a carpet edge, a leathery crust of coffee inside, freckled with ash.

“A drunken mug,” Susan thought, recalling Tesss childhood jokewhen left too long, coffee mugs told tales of priorities lost.

No flowers on the window silljust crumpled plastic cups, a crisp packet, and a withered lemon by the radiator.

Susan felt her insides shifting.

This wasnt just a messy flat. This was life unravelled, and no one seemed to notice or care.

***

“Dont look at me like that,” Helen snapped, catching her expression. “I havent tidied after well. After.”

“After what?” Susan asked gently.

“After Mum, after my job, afterthat lot.” A wave at the empties. “After life, really.”

Helen moved to the kitchen. Susan took in the cramped space: one table, a single chair, aged fridge with peeling magnets. A sink full of plates crusted hard with food, a frying pan with shrivelled potatoes, now a leaden grey. In the corner, a bin bag tied but waiting.

“I meant to ring,” Helen muttered, cranking up a kettle sorely in need of a wash. “But it just”

Susan clutched her bag, images from her own kitchen last week flickeringthe linen tablecloth, cakes, the laughter, the glitter. And herea world in parallel, where laughter belonged to someone elses party, and at home, there was only mess and silence.

She understood, suddenly: for Helen, her flat was more than a matter of convenience. It was the only space safe from her own “broom cupboard.”

“Are you here for something?” Helen asked, catching her up. “Or just to check up?”

“For something,” Susan said. “But perhaps a bit of both.”

***

“I thought youd still be cross,” Helen mumbled, lowering herself to a chair.

She blinked back tearsnot of joy, but of defeat.

“I am cross,” Susan admitted. “Very. The gatherings at mineyesterday was the last straw.”

She placed her bag on the table.

“But also, I” her voice trembled, but she pressed on, “I wanted to understand.”

Helen wiped a hand across her face, mascara smearing.

“Understand what?” she choked.

“Why its like this here. And why home only ever seems to happen at mine.”

Helen gave a desperate laugh.

“Because yours is a real home,” she said. “And this its just a cheap set.”

She took a shaky breath, and the words came, sudden and unfiltered, as if a dam had broken.

“I dont feel at home here, Sue. Not since Mum died, not since all that splitting and arguing. These wallstheyre not mine. Im a lodger. Got my stuff, but not a home. You know?”

Susan sat silently, her own grief echoing. She remembered the months after her mothers deathhow foreign her own flat felt, until shed moved the furniture, put up new curtains.

“But at yours” Helen continued, gaze fixed. “At yours, everythings right. The blankets just so, mugs shine, cat asleep on the sill. You move around your kitchen and know where everything is. Like like you know how to run life.”

Her voice wobbled.

“There, with you I dont feel scared. Or alone.”

Under Susans chest something warm and aching spreadpity, kinship, recognition.

“And I,” Helen gave a choked laugh, “thought you liked having a busy house. Youre so good at organising. I figured you must love it, being in the thick of it. I just wanted to be there, like it used to bebefore Mum.”

Susan swallowed.

“So you didnt notice my home turning into an extension of your chaos?”

Helen covered her face.

“I cant stand being alone, Sue. At night, when I am, I hear Mums voiceher orders, her youve done it all wrong again. So I turn up the music, invite people round, run to you because at yours, for the first time, I feel safe.”

Susan sat opposite. Her rehearsed speech lost its anger. Only its heart remained.

“Helen,” she said quietly, firmly. “Im so sorry for your loneliness. And grateful you call my place your refuge. But”

She steadied her trembling hands on the table.

“I cant be the only pillow for all your escapes.”

Helen looked down. Susan exhaled, slow.

“Lets try differently,” she said.

***

“Differently? How?” Helen asked, nose blotched with a tissue.

“For starters,” Susan looked about the flat, “not every gathering at Susans.”

Her eyes swept the coffee-stained mug, the chaos on the sofa, the bin forgotten in the corner.

“We start,” Susan said, “by remembering that home isnt always a party. Its where you can stand yourself.”

Helen let out a tearful chuckle.

“I havent stood myself in years,” she confessed.

“So lets fix it. Here.” Susan stood up. “If we keep dragging your crowd to mine, this place will stay just thismess and emptiness. And I cant cope anymore.”

She leaned against the chair, meeting her cousins gaze.

“So lets agree. Gatheringsone at mine, one at yours. Not a mob, just a few. Not each weekonce a month.”

“You really want people here, in this?” Helen gestured at the room.

“I want to stop my flat being the only place things happen,” Susan said. “To turn yours into that, too.”

She gazed at Helen, a little softer.

“And lets start simple. Not with people. With us.”

Helen frowned.

“How do you mean?”

Susan rolled up her sleeves.

“I meanlets chuck out the rubbish, wash those mugs, wipe down the tablethen well make pancakes. No girls, no glitter, no séances. Just you and me.”

“Pancakes?” Helen hiccoughed, but a flame flickered in her eyes. “I do better drop scones.”

“Drop scones it is,” Susan agreed.

***

And so they began.

Awkward, at first. Susan tied up the bin bag and hauled it to the door. Helen, sheepish, gathered mugs off the floor. Susan found a scouring pad under the sink.

“I wasnt born with a spotless sofa,” she told Helen. “Mum taught meand life itself. Youve simply found another way to survive.”

Helen said nothing, just scrubbed mugs as if her life depended on it.

The kitchen soon smelled of frying butter. Helen, at last absorbed in something familiar, shot Susan a lookand just for a moment, Susan saw the old playground Helen, staging fashion shows. Only here it was tired walls and shrivelled potatoes, not robes and ribbons.

When they sat together, munching hot scones and jam, the bell rang.

“Now whos that?” Helen leapt up.

Susan peered through the spy holesmiling.

“Family,” she said.

It was Tess, rucksack and bag in hand.

“Followed my nose,” she grinned. “Messaged you, Mumno answer, so I walked over.”

Helen blushed, smoothing her hair.

“Come in,” said Susan. “Rehearsing our new regime.”

Tess glanced around at the tidy flat, the two women, and a flicker of surpriseand approvalcrossed her face.

“Ooo,” she remarked. “Auntie Helens got the glitter now.”

“Glitter?” Helen cocked her head.

“Up there.” Tess nodded at the ceiling.

They all looked up. On the lamp, a lone silver star still clungseemingly, it had travelled on Helens clothes.

Susan laughed.

“There you have it,” she said. “Now we both sparklejust on purpose.”

“As long as its mutual,” Tess added with a wink at her mother.

Susan felt something important, once cramped inside her, finally unfold. She was still angry at Helen, still wary of new “hen nights.” But now, she had a choice. And so did Helen.

The three of them sat in the little kitchen, picking scones straight from the pan, laughing when Helen got flour on her nose.

And for the first time in many years, it felt like a real celebrationno “canapé queen,” no “best hostess in the world.” Just Susan, Helen, and Tess.