Nick, who had worked for the same company as Meg, had often jokily discussed with her what life would be like one day as empty-nesters when Will and Laura eventually left home. A positive man, they’d made all kinds of plans – perhaps to take a gap year themselves, which neither of them had done in their teens – and head off to travel Europe, and maybe beyond, in their beloved Bessie.

Laura was a good kid – no, correct that, she thought – a great kid. One of the many things she loved about her bright, sparky daughter was the way she cared about animals. Meg was charged now with looking after Laura’s precious pet guinea pig, Horace, and her two gerbils, as well as her imperious Burmese cat, Daphne.

When she came back home tonight to their small, pretty, mock-Tudor semi close to Hove seafront, Meg was painfully aware she would be truly alone. Home to a new reality. A real, lengthy period alone. And when Laura returned from her gap year, she’d then be getting ready to move to university. No more music blasting from Laura’s bedroom. No more questions on homework to help her daughter with. No more running commentaries on who was going out with who, or the geeky boy who had been trying to chat her up. A big, lonely, empty nest.

God, she loved her daughter so much. Laura was smart, fun and incredibly streetwise. Above all, Meg always knew she could trust her to take care of herself when she went out into town with her friends. Every night, apart from when she had to spend time away from home, travelling on business, they would sit down and have supper together and share their days.

But not any more. Tonight, she’d be alone with her memories. With Laura’s beloved pets – hoping and praying none would die while she was away – and with the photographs around the house of Nick and Will with her and Laura when they were a family of four. You have children? people would ask. Meg would reply, ‘I have two.’ It wasn’t true, but she did, back then.

‘I am a mother of two children, and I am a wife. But my son and my husband are dead.’ She never found those conversations any easier.

And to add to her concerns, her employer for the past twenty-odd years, ever since she had left uni, would be moving next year from nearby Horsham just forty minutes’ drive from here, up to Bedfordshire – a two-and-a-half-hour grind. No date had been fixed yet but, when the time came, she would have to make the choice either to stay on or take the redundancy package on offer.