Maggie had never forgiven Will for leaving them in their darkest hour. She despised him for caring so little about their child that he could leave like that, with barely any contact over the ensuing years. He was a photographer, footloose and fancy-free, and she would occasionally see his work pop up in glossy magazines, immediately feeling a rush of anger at the sight of his name. For years she had been unable to help comparing whatever exciting thing Will might be doing at any given moment with her own humdrum life.

He is crouching in a warzone right now, she would think dully, with heavy gunfire shattering the air around him, seeing men die through a camera lens. I, meanwhile, am raking the nit comb through our daughter’s hair and examining the white teeth for telltale dark specks.

He is having lunch in an expensive hushed hotel with a magazine editor who wants to commission a reportage special. Over in suburbia, however, I am cajoling our toddler to eat peas and sweetcorn.

His world was big, bristling with danger around each corner, boundless in its scope and urgency. Hers was as small as a held hand, a pinecone on the ground, a storybook pored over on a lap.

Not that Maggie begrudged her daughter their shared domestic world at all. Not for a moment. She had tried to shower Amelia with so much love and attention that there simply wasn’t space for her to feel as if she’d missed out by having an absent dad. Maggie had retrained from geologist to geography teacher, so that she could be around for every school holiday. She’d turned down countless invitations to book clubs, parties, dinner, drinks – most evening things, in fact, because she would rather spend time with her wonderful, sparky girl.

And for fourteen years Amelia had gazed lovingly back at her with those faithful dark eyes and been glad of her mother’s company. They’d moulded a comfortable life together, full of rituals and favourite things and in-jokes. Series they binge-watched together. Recipes they both enjoyed making. It had been delightful for Maggie – enriching and plentiful. Yet all of a sudden their relationship was no longer enough for Amelia, it seemed. Worse, it had apparently become an embarrassment.

The trouble with you, Maggie, Will had said to her once – and truly, was there any way in which this sentence didn’t end badly? – is that you’re too bloody intense. You’re needy. You consume people with your need. And I can’t live like this.

Maggie had never been able to forget those damning words. They had buzzed and circled around in her head like wasps in a jar. She knew she shouldn’t take anything to heart from Will, of all people, Mr Terrified of Commitment, but all the same, the sentiment smarted. He made her sound as if she was some monstrous parasite, leeching off her loved ones. When she’d only ever tried to do her best!