Mum shook her head. ‘No. If you’ve moved back home for good, you need to have a social life instead of spending every non-working hour cleaning.’

‘I don’t mind helping.’

She shook her head again. ‘You don’t need to. It’s already arranged. Someone in the village has a cleaning company. She’s going to send one of her team round every Friday to clean and every Tuesday to do the ironing. All we need to do is keep on top of the washing. When we get to the spring, we may need a gardener too. Logan’s keen but it’s too much for him on his own. We’re fine for now, though. So how does that all sound?’

I moved across to the sofa and hugged Mum. ‘It sounds great. Thank you.’

She held me tightly and whispered ‘sorry’ into my ear but I told her to forget it and that I understood. And I did understand. For a young, fit, healthy woman, this was one hell of a shock and I could see why dealing with it was such a struggle. I just hoped that the counselling would help her control her temper and get her to see us as allies instead of the enemy. I also hoped that Sam would still be willing to give that second diagnosis.

31

Sam

I had Sunday lunch at Jack and Millie’s and tried to join in the laughter and banter but my mind was still on the beach. All I could focus on was that brief moment where I’d thought about kissing Jemma then Kirsty’s bitchy comments about how quickly I’d moved on. She’d wanted to hurt me and she’d succeeded. The guilt lay heavy on my heart.

As I drove Thor back to London, I kept replaying the morning’s events over and over in my mind. How could I do that to Nikki’s memory? How could I visit the rock pools, full of love for Nikki, then wrap my arms round another woman and think about kissing her?

By the time I arrived back at my flat late that night, a text had arrived from Jemma:

✉︎ From Jemma