In a year of thinking things over, it is the slap to Siobhan’s face that still makes Becky feel sick with shame. Its viciousness. The fear behind it. The desire to crush and intimidate anyone who might expose her. She has gone over that moment many times, but still, her inability to take Siobhan’s censure on the chin, instead assaulting her, is something that she cannot forgive herself for.

The only silver lining is that it gives her a vanishingly small moment of fellow-feeling with Adam. That slap was not the totality of who she is. It is not her whole truth. And so when Adam had asked her to please believe that what he did to her is not who he is, now she at least understands what he means. It doesn’t change much, it doesn’t excuse anything, but she knows what he means.

A few days after Siobhan texted, Becky had taken the strength gained from a rare good night’s sleep, and the comfort of her daughter sleeping close by, and the sun beaming through a gap in the curtains, and decided to call her. So, without breakfast, without allowing herself time to doubt and unpick the instinct, she picked up the phone and dialled.

Siobhan had answered after two rings. ‘All right?’ she said, a response so unexpected that Becky was silenced. ‘Beck, are you there?’

And then the words had poured out. ‘I’m calling because it matters to me what you think. And I want you to know that of all the bad things I’ve done in the last year, the thing I most regret was hurting you. I can’t take that back and I’m not asking you to forgive me, but I want to tell you that when things started happening with Matthew and Amber, I made some really bad decisions. I was afraid of what might happen and what I might lose. I didn’t want my life destroyed by something I hadn’t done. But that was wrong. I should have been braver than that. And I’m so sorry I took it out on you.’

Enough silence had fallen for Becky to think Siobhan had ended the call until she heard her say, ‘Bit heavy for eight a.m. on a Tuesday?’

Becky had laughed, sniffing back tears.

‘Seriously,’ said Siobhan. ‘I’m feeling sorry for you right now. Some of the stuff they’re saying about you … especially as I know you loved your work and you worked hard. And you did come forward, in the end.’ Becky felt tears on her cheeks and she was glad Siobhan couldn’t see them.

Becky wanted to tell her more: to drape and underpin and contextualize everything with the details of her own story, to do as Matthew and Adam had, garlanding their actions with good reasons, solid explanations, great excuses, and a bulletproof sense that they ought never to be judged for any pain they had caused. And yet, with Siobhan, she tried to let her apology stand unreserved.