Maybe it's the way the golden sunlight spills in through the doors and windows while she sits at the table, shining through her brass-red strands of hair, highlighting every freckle – and that mole on her neck – and making them seem all the more innocent.

(Maybe it's the way the sunlight lights up her shining eyes and reflects them onto mine…)

Maybe it's the way her cereal spills over her spoon while she brings it to her mouth, because she shrieks with shock and slight embarrassment when the milk splatters on her cotton pyjamas, and I can laugh at her in that patronizing way that all big brothers do, pretending that I feel nothing more for her than a gruff sort of brotherly tolerance.

(Maybe it's the way that it really should be…)

Maybe it's the way she frowns at me, furrowing her milk-white brow and emphasizing her brown freckles all the more. Maybe it's the way her pink-red lips accept the next gulp of orange juice resignedly yet greedily, and the way her equally-freckled hand reaches up to rub away any lingering traces of either juice or cereal.

(Maybe it's the way that she drinks the juice, but it almost makes you envy it…)

Or maybe it's the way she smiles. Because afterwards, I bring her outside into the newly de-gnomed garden and show her how all the daisies – almost simultaneously – open their new, white, innocent petals and face each identical yellow face to the sun. Yes, it's the way she smiles, I think, because when those two small lips curve upwards and fall apart in a quietly admiring smile, revealing slightly open teeth, she reminds me of when she ran to me when she cut her knee, when she found a ladybug, when she was younger.

When she was innocent.

(But I carved a little place in my heart for you, Ginny. A little cage, just for you and you alone. A little golden cage where you can sit and sing all you want, but never leave. You can watch out through the gaps in the bars, but never leave. Doesn't that sound nice? To enter this world – and leave it – without any sin at all? As pure – as innocent – as the driven snow. Because I can't just survive, Ginny, on the simple memory of your innocence alone. Come sit in your cage, Ginny. My sister. My love. My little songbird.)

Maybe it's the way she smiles.

When she smiles I don't have to feel so guilty.