We didn’t hug at the door. I thanked her for dinner and we both just mumbled goodbye. And that was the last time I ever saw her.

As I walked back down the path, I thought: fuck it. I’ll call her later and apologise.

I didn’t call her later. I let eight days slip by without calling or seeing her. And then she was gone.

Chapter Thirty-Three

I finish telling Daphne all this and find that I’m suddenly exhausted.

It’s as if the secret has been holding me upright these past two years: woven right through me like the stake in a scarecrow. And now that it’s out, it takes all my concentration not to just flop limply into a heap.

I slump back against the bench, my eyes still fixed on Mum’s gravestone, and expel a deep breath. Daphne studies me carefully for a second or two and then pulls me forcefully towards her. ‘Oh, Ben … I’m so sorry,’ she whispers.

I pull back and look at her, confused. ‘Sorry? Did you not … Daff, I’m the one who should be sorry. The things I said to her …’

She shakes her head and smiles at me sadly. ‘It was just a fight. We all have fights. They don’t mean anything. You fight and then you make up. That’s what happens. But you didn’t get to make up.’ She cups my face in her hands and kisses me gently. ‘And I’m so sorry for that.’

I feel something buckle inside me, and wipe a hand across my eyes. ‘I never got to tell her that I didn’t mean it.’

‘Ben, look at me,’ she says firmly. ‘She knew you didn’t mean it. Blurting out a few stupid, hurtful things when you were feeling down can’t possibly undo everything you went through together. You must know that. She was your mum, for God’s sake. She knew you loved her. Of course she did. Nothing you said that night could possibly have changed that.’

‘You really think so?’

‘I know so.’

I close my eyes, and feel the relief flow through me like water. I’ve kept the secret of that night locked in my head for more than two years, letting it gnaw at me, make me hate myself a little more each day. And now, hearing Daphne say those words … it’s like being washed clean. I’ll always regret that that was the last time I saw Mum – always – but Daff is right: it doesn’t have to define the rest of my life. I don’t think Mum would have wanted it to.

Before I can properly bask in this thought, though, my mind snags on something else.