It was still too early to call them, so I made tea and toast and sat down in my pj’s – grey silk ones that I’d bought after Richard had left and I could run up my credit cards again – at the dining table to go through the pile of cards still waiting to be opened. There were about sixty from family, colleagues, friends, an embossed card from Richard with a message saying, let’s get together in the New Year. It was hand-delivered so he must have popped it through my letterbox when I was in the shower this morning. Why? I thought. And had he been hoping to see me when he brought the card? Our time together hadn’t ended well; it was the only time I’d really witnessed his controlled persona break down when he’d begged me to give us another chance. I felt bad that I’d hurt him because he was a nice man, but he was just not for me. I think he had loved me in his own way – or at least the me I’d tried to be for him – but I wasn’t that person. Something had been missing and I hadn’t been prepared to compromise.

I texted Stuart to see if I could see him as soon as he was free, then I sifted through the cards. My phone pinged that I had a text. Will be back in London tonight, need to see you urgently, coffee tomorrow? Heather XX

Heather was one of my closest friends. We’d shared a flat together when I first came to London and we’d worked together almost as long as I’d had the shop. She also took care of business in my absence and I trusted her completely. I texted back, C U here at 10? BX. Urgent, she’d said in her text. Maybe she already had wind of what the letter said.

I sent messages to my parents and my brothers that I would be calling them later, then busied myself tidying and catching up on domestic jobs. Stuart texted back that he could see me on the 28th. Phew, it would be good to talk things through with him, I thought, as I finally sat back at the table with my laptop and phone to call Mum and Dad in Spain where they now lived in happy retirement. I had been a couple of times to join them for Christmas. Other years they had come back here but, as they’d got older, I had sensed a reluctance to travel, hence our cyber catch-up. I texted them: Are you there? No reply.