She would have liked to have suggested they both go to bed and pick up the discussion in the morning, but she could see Milly was too upset, and she didn’t want to worry her daughter by admitting how bad she felt.

“I’m sure she did it because she was afraid, honey. She blamed herself. I expect she thought she’d been a bad friend. She was afraid she was the reason Richard left.”

“Obviously she wasn’t.”

“Nothing is obvious when emotions are heightened, Milly. Thoughts are just that—thoughts—but they’re all too easy to believe when you’re in a spiral.”

Milly sniffed. “So, you’re saying it was fine for her to ghost me?”

“None of this is fine. But I think, sometimes, it’s good to try and understand why a person might have done what they did. The way she saw it, she’d let you down. Been a bad friend.”

“That wasn’t the part that made her a bad friend. It was ignoring me. Not being there for me. She should have known that. We’d been friends for long enough.”

Connie was starting to feel distinctly odd. Everything seemed far away, and objects in the kitchen seemed blurry. “Think about it from Nicole’s point of view. She grew up feeling as if she had to earn affection. She didn’t trust that love could be unconditional because that wasn’t her experience.” And she’d worried about Nicole. Unlike many, she’d always seen Nicole’s fragility and vulnerability. She’d felt it in her hugs and seen the longing in her eyes when she’d talked about her mother.

Remembering it made Connie angry. Alexandra Walker had a great deal to answer for in her opinion.

Milly took a sip of water. “It wasn’t her experience at home, but I’ve always loved her unconditionally. She knows that.”

“Maybe. But I’m guessing her childhood made her feel she had to earn that love, and that it wasn’t unconditional. We all bring the past into the present, whether we are aware of it or not. Your friendship was all fine when things were going well, but this was something different, and she knew it. Perhaps she felt that bond between you had never been tested.”

Milly frowned. “But when she called me asking for help I was there for her, despite the fact she hadn’t been there for me. I showed up, even though I was hurt. She’s been living in my house, and there have been plenty of occasions over the past few weeks when she could have told me the truth, but she didn’t. I’ve been a good friend to her—” She broke off and stared at the table for a moment. Then she gave her mother an agonized look.

“What’s wrong?”