A tear slid down my cheek and I blinked and swallowed in an aim to try to stop more following. As much as I didn’t want my kids to see me crying, it would be even worse and embarrassing for both Hayley and me if her friend witnessed my meltdown.

‘Oh honey.’ She put down her wineglass, edged her chair closer to mine and wrapped her arm around my shoulder. Her effort to comfort me ruined my attempt to hold it together.

‘Get the tissues, Wei,’ she barked. ‘On the bench.’

His chair scraped on the tiles as he pushed back and hurried to obey. He returned moments later and thrust the whole box towards me.

‘Thanks.’ I smiled up at him through my sobs as I grabbed one and tried to pull myself together.

‘There is another option, you know?’ Wei said tentatively.

Hayley and I both looked at him in confusion. ‘Another option for what?’ she snapped. ‘If you’re going to suggest Ash murder Adrian and bury him in the backyard, you’re too late, I already thought of that but she’s far more pure and generous-hearted than we are.’

Wei looked at me uncertainly as if he didn’t know whether it was safe to laugh or not.

When I smirked and elbowed my sister-in-law, he let out a deep chuckle, then cleared his throat. ‘Anyway, as I was saying … I might be way out of line suggesting this and feel free to say no. You’ve done such a great job with my granddad’s shack so far but there’s lots of work still to do, so I’ve got a proposition for you.’

‘I’m listening,’ I said, twisting a soggy tissue between my fingers.

He sat back down in the chair opposite. ‘Hayley told me how you renovated this place and that you’re pretty handy at fixing things up, which as you saw for yourself is exactly what the shack needs. How would you feel about staying there on your non-home weeks and doing a bit more work for us?’

‘What exactly do you want me to do?’

‘Well, thanks to you I’ve arranged for the ceilings to be replaced, but what else do you think needs doing?’

I didn’t need to think long—I’d spent plenty of time last week imagining what I’d do to the shack if it were mine.

‘At the bare minimum, it needs a new coat of paint throughout and new carpets in the bedrooms. Unless you decide you’d rather some other type of flooring—I think there might be floorboards under the bedroom carpets that might be salvageable. The kitchen and bathroom cabinets could both do with replacing, the tiles really date the place and there’s lots more you could work towards.’

‘Is that the kind of thing you know how to do?’

‘Most of it. Although there’s a few months’ work there at least.’