Tanya nods, her lips pursed, and I imagine her thinking back to the one and only time she met my sister. I know she wasn’t impressed, but I stopped bothering to defend Bonnie long ago. At some point I got past caring what anyone else thought or feeling the need to explain that, with so little family left, I can’t be blamed for wanting to cling to her.

Besides, no one has ever been able to understand our relationship. Not even I could explain all the intricacies that tie us together. In most ways we are polar opposites. But I’d made an unspoken promise eighteen years ago, soon after Danny left, that I would always be there for my sister. That was when I began to wonder if it wasn’t all Bonnie’s fault she was the way she was.

Mum used to whisper to me at night sometimes. When she thought I was sleeping she’d creep into my room, pulling the duvet back over me where I’d kicked it off. I’d liked her kneeling on the floor beside me, her warm breath on my face, the smell of Chanel washing over me, lingering long after she’d left the room.

‘My everything, Stella,’ she would whisper as she gently stroked my hair. ‘You’re all the babies I ever need.’

Maybe that left no room for Bonnie.

Tanya and I leave the office together. She turns left as I cross over towards the park, a cut-through on my twenty-minute walk home, past the cathedral and to my flat that sits just on the outskirts of Winchester.

I like the walk, even in January when the only light is from the street lamps and the cold air bites at my skin. It gives me a chance to mull over my client list for the following week and, as I always do on a Friday, vow to invest more time in building up my business.

Making a decision to set up on my own as a family counsellor hadn’t been done on a whim. I was never one of those children who’d decided early on what job they would do. Even after A levels, I still had no idea and it took twelve unhappy years in recruitment and a satisfying redundancy package for me to make the break.

Four years ago I’d signed up for the training and obligatory counselling I had to undertake myself before I could counsel others. My supervisor had underlined the importance of the latter early on. Carrying childhood scars or unresolved issues from previous relationships could make my advice biased.