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!

She glanced across at Amelia, her adored girl, slumped in the passenger seat beside her, earphones unsociably attached. It was her worst fear that one day her daughter would reject her in the same way that Will had. The trouble with you, Mum – oh God, she couldn’t even bear to imagine the rest of the sentence. It would kill her. It would break her heart clean through.

She must have let out an involuntary moan at the thought because Amelia turned, yanking out an earbud, and gave her mother a suspicious sideways look. ‘You all right?’ she asked grudgingly.