After a while Celeste appeared with the little ones, having returned from the local shops, and the children both rushed over to Amelia to show her the treasures they’d found along the way: a pebble with a hole in the middle, a fallen fuchsia bloom that was as pink and fulsome as a pair of harem pants. There was something rather touching about their eager faces, so much so that Maggie didn’t even feel irritated by Celeste saying ‘Maggie! Hello’ in her low, dreamy voice and coming over to kiss her.

(Actually, she did feel a little bit irritated, but only because she was not a kissy sort of person. But never mind. It only lasted a moment. She would get over it.)

This is Amelia’s family, she found herself thinking tentatively. These people are connected to her now and I can’t change that. She had a slight pang as Amelia pulled the little boy (what was his name again? Nettle? Rain?) onto her knee – and yes, there it was, she acknowledged: the ache that a mother of one sometimes felt, when imagining your child with a sibling or two. The guilty stab that maybe they wished they weren’t an only child. There was Amelia bending her face down to hear what the little boy was saying to her, as he related some tale or other about a ginger cat they had seen and, for a second, Maggie’s heart cracked just a tiny bit that this was a scene in which she had no part, one where she could only be an onlooker. But it was sweet the way that Amelia and the boy – Thistle, that was it – could chat in this easy way. Nice that they had formed a new bond of their own. Perhaps as they both grew older they would choose to develop that bond, call each other brother and sister, ring up one another to grumble about Will or exchange funny stories about him. Perhaps this would be as close as they ever came, though, this moment about a ginger cat – and their paths would diverge from here and never really connect fully again and . . .

Okay, stop, Maggie. She was taking all this way too seriously. The details could all be worked out in the future.

Draining her mug of disappointingly weak tea, she caught Amelia’s eye. ‘We should head off soon,’ she said. She wanted to reclaim her daughter now, to sit with her in the car and return to being on holiday together. They’d all survived this strange family shift more or less intact; perhaps it was time to get out while the going was good. ‘Shall we?’

Amelia lifted Thistle from her knee and stood up. ‘Thanks for having me,’ she said to Will and Celeste, suddenly formal once more and a little shy, Maggie thought, as she pushed a lock of hair out of her eyes.