Maddy swooped down and grabbed Emily’s now floppy body out in a heartbeat. She screamed for help, out of the open window as she gently tipped Emily upside down, carefully supporting her body along her arm, then she smacked her back. With wet and shaking fingers Maddy managed to press 999 on her mobile and speak to the emergency services on speaker phone. A minute later, Sarah had burst in saying she’d heard Maddy’s screams from the garden and let herself in through the back door. The paramedics had arrived moments later, followed by Max.

Every day she’s reminded of what she did. Emily’s fits are becoming more frequent. Sometimes she’s a bit slower than other children. The brain damage was slight, but it should never have happened at all. She’ll never forgive herself.

After Emily has gone to bed, Maddy retreats to her own bedroom and shuts the door. She pulls open her wardrobe doors. One by one, she picks out every garment and lays them on the bed in two piles. One for keeping, the other for charity. She holds up the red dress she wore when she first went out with Max and the blue shift dress with short sleeves from the evening they celebrated their engagement. Everything she’s hung on to because it was precious is going. There’s no longer a place for sentimentality in her life or for seeing the best in people. Not when she’s been hoodwinked and humiliated. Now she knows what her mother went through and why her voice is as clear as a bell in her head. I’m the only one who you can trust.

She stuffs the clothes in a bin liner and when the wardrobe is almost empty, she shifts the few remaining clothes from the furthest end to the centre. Right at the back she spots her wedding dress in a clear plastic cover. She reaches for it, sliding it along and stuffs it straight into the black bag. Behind it is her mother’s coney fur coat. She’s clean forgotten she’d kept this. How can she let it go? If there is one garment that embodies the glamorous mother she remembers from her childhood, it is this. It’s soft and luxurious between her fingers and slips easily off the hanger into her hands, releasing a faint waft of Chanel N°19, unlocking the bolt on a whole chapter of her life.

Instantly it sends her back to the theatre, her mother standing next to her, shimmying the coat from her shoulders. The three of them sitting in a stall, mother, father and her. How beautiful both her parents were. They seemed so content and happy that night. She looked up to them, wanted a marriage like theirs one day. But was it already a lie by then, had they dressed up and pretended for her benefit?