‘You could have told me.’

‘I haven’t known myself for very long. And I didn’t want to say anything until I’d made a decision. Because I wasn’t sure what I was going to do.’

Sigrid stares straight ahead.

‘And are you now?’ she asks. ‘Sure, I mean.’

‘No, not in the slightest. But I’ve made a decision. I’m keeping it.’

Silence.

Karen turns her head and looks at Sigrid who is chewing her lower lip, the ring in her nose moving with her jaw. So young. So many years spent building walls against anything that might hurt her. And so childishly vulnerable now that she has finally let her guard down. As though she were twelve again, not nineteen.

‘And you,’ Karen adds. ‘I’d like to keep you too, if you’ll let me.’

The chewing stops but she says nothing.

‘No one can replace you, Sigrid. Not even a new child. Do you understand that?’

Still no answer. Just a faint sniff and a quick wipe of the nose.

‘And the day you’ve had enough of living with me, I’m probably going to tie you down.’

‘Why? I just take up space.’

‘I want you to take up space.’

‘But the kid’s going to need my room. The baby, I mean.’

‘We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. We can always ask Leo to build an extension. Don’t you remember him and Harry going on and on about it last Christmas, between drinks? Make the attic bigger, add a room to the annex.’

Sigrid chuckles. Grudgingly.

‘Yeah, you were so pissed off,’ she says.

‘But maybe now we should let him show us if he can make any of that a reality. He claims to have worked in construction when he was young, but for some reason I have a hard time picturing Leo installing plasterboard.’

‘He can always ask Harry for help,’ Sigrid says. ‘Wouldn’t it be amazing to have him living here, too, with all the scaffolds and cement. It probably doesn’t take more than six months to complete.’

Karen shudders. The mere thought of having her mother and her ‘boyfriend’, seventy-six-year-old Harry Lampard, stay for more than a few days is intolerable. But it probably won’t be long before Eleanor Eiken calls to tell her they’ve booked plane tickets from Spain.

‘Wonderful,’ she says grimly. ‘Mum, Leo, and Harry can take the main house and you and I will move out to the annex until it’s all done.’

And then she feels it. A head on her shoulder.