Lilah Redwing borrowed her company’s people carrier (usually reserved for potential buyers and For Sale or To Let signs) to hold Celeste and her friends and any of their parents who needed a ride to Sorrel’s funeral. Now, as they leave the cemetery, she glances into the rear-view mirror and says to the two boys in the back seat, “It’s such a shame your folks couldn’t make it.” As if she doesn’t know that Ruben’s father is dead, and that both his and Orlando’s mothers have been to one too many funerals in their lives to attend another if it isn’t strictly obligatory. “It was such a lovely service.”

Celeste, sitting beside her mother, keeps her eyes on her phone, but Ruben and Orlando, who have been staring out of their respective windows, both look at the mirror.

“Yeah, well, you know,” says Orlando. “My dad had to work.”

“My mom is sorry, but these things are hard for her,” says Ruben.

Lilah Redwing, however, isn’t a woman easily distracted from her own thoughts, or burdened by the necessity of listening to anyone else. “Really lovely. The speakers. The music. The flowers. Everything was perfect. And such a touching tribute to dear Sorrel.” She sounds so moved and so sincere you’d assume that she’d liked her daughter’s best friend – though in this moment, of course, fresh from the graveside, she probably thinks that she did. Lilah smiles at the car ahead of them. “I do think Sorrel would be pleased.” Lilah glances over at Celeste, sitting beside her with her head bent over her phone, concentrating so hard she might be defusing a bomb. “Don’t you think so, darling?” Darling, who would rather be almost anywhere than on her way to the Groobers’ – a place she has never been or wanted to be without Sorrel – and who is trying not to show it, doesn’t look up, but nods. “It was so upbeat and young.” Like Sorrel, who now will be young for ever. “I felt it was very positive – very life-affirming.”

Ruben and Orlando had gone back to watching the passing streets, each of them thinking about the slow walk to the grave, the weight of the casket, how brightly the sun shone. At this statement, which makes where they’ve just been sound less like a funeral than a musical, they turn to each other and exchange a look. The only thing the funeral affirmed for them was death.

Orlando’s eyes are wide open, but he doesn’t see the charms hanging from the mirror or the back of Lilah Redwing’s head or the road in front of them. He sees Sorrel as she lay in the funeral home, wearing a dress intended for a prom, her blonde head on the pink pillow as if she was asleep. She looked so much like a fairy-tale princess waiting to be woken by the prince’s kiss that he was almost tempted to lean down and put his lips on hers. Which is why, instead of ignoring Celeste’s mother, as he knows he should (as they usually do), Orlando says, “You mean positive for a funeral, right, Mrs Redwing?”

Looking into the rear-view mirror, Lilah gives him the saint-like smile that is one of her specialities – that and the smile of a martyr. “You may not realize it, Orlando, but death is not the end. That’s why it’s important not to dwell on our temporary separation from the departed. On personal feelings. After all, it’s the body that ceases to exist, not the spirit. It’s only final if you’re not looking at the big picture.”

Orlando, of course, like most of the other mourners, wasn’t looking at the big picture but at that hole in the ground. And so, although normally scrupulously polite and respectful to adults, he now says, “You mean not the end in the sense that we come from stardust and return to it?”

Celeste lowers her head even further; Ruben turns to him again, looking wary.

“No, that’s not what I mean,” says Lilah. “I mean that it’s a beginning of the next phase. A continuation. It’s just another state of being. There’s the before you’re born. The after you’re born. And then there’s the after you’ve lived. They’re all part of the whole. Part of the circle. Sorrel may not be here, but she isn’t gone. She’s just stepped into a different room.”

Orlando opens his mouth to point out that the room Sorrel’s stepped into is six feet under the ground, but before he can get the words out Ruben kicks him in the shin.

“And it was such a good showing,” Lilah Redwing sails on. “So many sympathizers. That’s important when something like this happens. People can feel pretty alone. Isolated. They need to know that they aren’t. That others understand and empathize.” The miniature dreamcatcher and the small Celtic cross that hang from the mirror sway as they take a turn. “But even so, her poor parents. Imagine. Such a terrible thing. And the guilt they must feel. I mean, the grief, that goes without saying, but, on top of that, the guilt. No matter what. The guilt must be overwhelming.”

“Guilt?” It’s the “No matter what” that finally makes Celeste raise her head. Her mother has a talent for implying things she won’t come out and say. And for saying one thing when she actually means something else. (Lilah has been known, for example, to suggest that some people might think Celeste had put on weight, or that some people might think Celeste could do more to help her mother, or that some people might think Celeste spent too much time with her best friend and was too influenced by her. But if Celeste confronted her mother about saying those things, Lilah would immediately deny it. “I never said that,” she would say – and, of course, she never had…) “Why should they feel guilty?” Celeste goes on. “They weren’t driving the car.”

“No one said they were, darling. But they’re parents. What parents wouldn’t blame themselves? I mean, we all know it wasn’t anything they did or didn’t do. These things happen.”

Ruben, who has personal experience of these things that can happen, leans forward. “Accidents,” he says. “Accidents happen. Sorrel getting run over like that had nothing to do with the Groobers. Or even the driver. She’s a victim, too. It was a bad night and Sorrel stepped into the road for some reason. That’s the whole story.”

Lilah blesses him with one of her beatific smiles. “Yes, of course it was an accident, Ruben. I’m not suggesting…” The dreamcatcher and the cross both sway non-committally. “But parents have an enormous responsibility. And Sorrel was out in that terrible storm at all hours. They have to blame themselves for that. They must think they should have stopped her from leaving the house.”

Celeste keeps her eyes on the phone that she’s gripping like a lifeline. And doesn’t allow herself to think about who else might be to blame. “Sorrel was always walking in the rain.” In the rain, no one can see your tears.

“People walk in showers, darling. That rain was more like a monsoon. But she was a very wilful girl, wasn’t she?” Lilah Redwing sighs. “Headstrong. Probably they did tell her not to go but she went anyway.” A second sigh joins the first. “At least they can console themselves with knowing that even if they’d locked all the doors she’d probably have gone out a window.”

No one answers. All three of her passengers are looking at their phones, and thinking how they wouldn’t mind going out a window themselves right now.

Lilah Redwing, however, is also not a woman who needs any encouragement to talk. “But even so, they’ll feel guilty. Especially Meryl. A mother always thinks everything’s her fault.” Which is an interesting opinion from a woman who thinks that nothing is her fault. “And Meryl looks like hell. Orson looks awful, too, but he’s not a handsome man at the best of times, is he? And he is so much older. Meryl is ravaged. You can really see her age. Everybody thinks so. I mean, that’s what you’d expect, but my heart went out to her. God knows, we all have our crosses to bear, but what she must be going through… I bet she hasn’t slept even a wink since it happened. Not a single wink…”

And so they drive on to the Groobers’ house, Celeste’s mother continuing to talk about the funeral and the death and how Sorrel’s parents must be feeling and how tragic it all is and how difficult Sorrel was and how Celeste must be glad she didn’t wear anything garish and how much food will be left over since everybody’s bringing something and nobody’s going to feel like eating. While she talks, Celeste, Ruben and Orlando think their own thoughts about Sorrel and say nothing.

“Here we are!” announces Lilah when at last they come to a stop.

There are already so many people at the Groobers’ that their voices carry into the street. Lilah has to park at the end of the block.

When they reach the house, set back from the road on an uninspired rectangle of lawn, Lilah changes from concerned neighbour to professional estate agent and pauses at the bottom of the front path to assess the property. Wondering how much it cost; if they’ll want something smaller now.

Because Lilah stops and looks up at the house, the others stop and look up, too.

Something moves in the left-hand window of Sorrel’s bedroom.

Lilah Redwing, who is trying to gauge the number of rooms and their likely dimensions, doesn’t notice.

Orlando, who doesn’t want to be reminded of the one time he was in Sorrel’s room, looks away quickly and doesn’t notice.

Celeste, the memory of all the times she has seen Sorrel standing at her window, watching for her, ready to smile and wave, looks, instead, at the weathervane in the shape of a ship on the roof.

It is only Ruben who looks right at the window of Sorrel’s room. And so it is only Ruben who sees what could almost be mistaken for a figure, standing there, gazing out at them, waving. But Ruben is a painter, he knows about light – knows that it’s only the way it’s reflecting off the surface of the glass that he sees – and turns away.

Sorrel thought Celeste would look up at her window, as she always did. And would see Sorrel watching out for her, as she always did. The last person she expected to find herself waving at is Ruben, who wouldn’t know which room was hers. But she continues to wave and smile, nonetheless.

Death has made her more adaptable than she used to be.