‘Oh chill out, sis!’ Rachel countered, sipping her tea. ‘You’re both grown adults. Charlie only has to look at you to see you haven’t spent the last fifteen years pining for him, and if he really needs more proof, you can always whip out the pictures of you and Andrew that are on your Facebook page as proof you’re not some heartbroken damsel. That ought to show him you’ve gone out and got a life in the meantime.’

‘Do you think I’m overthinking things again?’ Holly asked, although she already knew the answer.

‘Of course you are!’ Rachel said. ‘And that was the whole reason you opened up the shop, wasn’t it? To give yourself some quality time and a chance to fulfil your ambitions. To give yourself the thinking space you needed in a proper, legitimate way. We both know what happens when the darkness takes over; the damage it can do.’ Both had seen their father’s anxiety affect his life and theirs over the years, and both had felt it encroaching on them, too, from time to time. The secret was finding the right coping strategy to make life liveable. Holly had her shop, and Rachel now had the goal of getting the right treatment for Harry. It was ironic that, for Rachel, her coping mechanism had come out of the thing that caused her the most anxiety.

‘I think we’ve got a bit more talking to do, anyway,’ Holly mused.

‘Talking, yeah right! Snogging more like.’ Rachel snorted. ‘And a fair bit of catching up to do. “Oh, Charlie, show me your honourable member!”’

‘Oh, bog off,’ Holly laughed. ‘We just kissed.’

‘Yeah, no thanks to me and Harry,’ Rachel said. ‘That’s twice you’ve been cock-blocked by your own nephew. Hopefully it’ll be third time lucky.’

‘I’ll keep you posted,’ Holly smiled. ‘If you’re lucky.’

‘Oh, come on, you have to fuel the fantasies of a knackered single mother somehow,’ Rachel said. She fell silent as the baby monitor crackled into life, but it was only Harry turning over in his sleep. Visibly relaxing, she smiled. ‘Thanks for getting the Creon for me, though. I would have called Mum, but they’re not back home until tomorrow.’

‘It’s fine, honestly,’ Holly replied. ‘And perhaps it’ll give Charlie time to process everything. After all, I’ve had a few weeks to get my head around it!’

‘It’s not like you had some great love affair,’ Rachel said. ‘It was a few hours in a club in London. Not that much to have to process.’

‘True, in one sense,’ Holly acknowledged. ‘But the coincidence of it? Him rocking up as the local MP? A believer in fate, destiny and a greater power might say it was written in the stars.’