‘I know you aren’t. Doesn’t mean I can’t relate though. It’s four years since she died and I loved her to bits but I was absolutely furious with her for leaving us. They say grief is not a logical thing, and it’s true.’ He pulls himself back to the present.

Tess rubs her dirty palms together slowly. ‘It’s not something we have any control over. It just smashes its way in. One minute you are loved and safe, and the next, it’s all gone.’ She examines the green tinge on her fingers, left by the grass. ‘A distant acquaintance told me recently that he has three kids now, so I guess that means he got what he wanted. I suppose it probably wasn’t exactly easy for him either. These things are difficult for everyone. I’ve seen enough broken hearts in this house over the last eleven years to know that.’

‘So when you came here, did Georgia look after you?’

Tess shakes her head. ‘Absolutely not. Nobody here is looked after. Annie started it all, Georgia took over and now it’s my turn. Number 25 offers people somewhere to stay at a time in their lives when they have no idea how to wash, or eat proper food, or speak in whole sentences, let alone organise things like going to the dentist. When I took over from her, Georgia told me that everyone takes a different amount of time. Some need six months, others need a year or even longer.’

‘Time to do what, though?’

‘To reach the point where they can think about what comes next.’

‘Gotcha.’ Ben closes his notebook. ‘The girls kept me busy, but it wasn’t until we moved here last summer that I was able to make a proper start.’ He thinks about Zoe, and what she would want for them. This isn’t the life they planned together, but he is sure she would approve of the line of walking boots in the hall, and the waterproofs hanging on the hooks above them, always ready for the next adventure. Number 25 is not a magazine-perfect house, despite the neatly paired socks and never-late library books. In the kitchen the girls’ colourful paintings of the four of them are stuck to the freezer door, and Tess never makes any attempt to remove them until the next piece of art arrives.