Toby always wanted to see the worst in anything their mum did. ‘I think it says a lot about how hurt Mum was, that she couldn’t bear to have any reminders of what he did to her. And if it turns out Dad was drinking so much he ended up in rehab … maybe she thought he wouldn’t be able to look after us properly?’ Things were falling into place now, making sense. The treehouse, the whisky in the office. Mum’s hawk-like observations. ‘That explains why we only ever saw him during the day, not for sleepovers. Mum was just being a responsible parent, not this vindictive cow you’re making her out to be.’

‘I’m not saying that …’

‘The thing is,’ Tara went on, warming to her theme, ‘you have no idea what her life was like after you left.’ She didn’t add, just like Dad, even though it would have evened the score from the previous night. ‘She never had another relationship after him. She must have found it impossible to trust anyone. I find that heartbreaking.’

Toby poured himself some coffee and took a couple of deep breaths, as if he was trying to reason with a deeply irritating child. ‘I’m not saying she wasn’t a good mum in many ways, but she wasn’t the tragic lonely martyr you need her to be.’

‘What do you mean, need?’

‘Because that’s why you felt obliged to stay round here, isn’t it? Instead of finishing your law training and going to live somewhere more interesting? I mean, you still could, right? Do your legal qualification?’

He probably thought he was being encouraging, but Tara heard, You live in a backwater and have no ambition.

‘I might have stayed initially, when Mum had her accident and needed one of her children to help her out,’ she replied, hotly, ‘but it was my decision to stay after that. I like it here. And I’m glad I didn’t do my LPC because otherwise I’d never have got into counselling, which I love.’

‘You don’t need to lock the door to make people stay,’ said Toby.

‘Do you get all your philosophy from Instagram now?’

He raised an eyebrow.

‘Maybe if she’d married again, I might have moved,’ she conceded, ‘but she didn’t, and I can totally understand why. We never discussed it explicitly, but I think she struggled to trust people after what Dad did. She had to throw herself into her work and her shop and this house because she had no one else to—’

‘Tara,’ said Toby. ‘Mum was shagging Diane.’

The words froze on Tara’s lips. ‘What?’

‘Mum was in a relationship with Diane. That was why Dad left – he found out.’