Those words still had the power to pull the air from my lungs. I wanted to cover my ears. I didn’t want to hear that she’d died. I knew it. I was acutely aware of it every hour of every day. Someone saying it out loud didn’t make it any more real to me, but it did make me feel as if I were being punched in the stomach. A visceral physical edge to my emotional pain. Those words … those words had the power to reduce me to tears without even realising. I missed her. God, I missed her every moment of every day. Missed being able to pick up the phone to chat. Missed sitting across the table from her, cup of tea in hand, a shared plate of biscuits in front of us. I missed just knowing she was there. This person who loved me unconditionally, who’d been on my side from the moment I was born. I’d never truly known what loneliness was until that first time I wanted to talk to her and realised she was gone. It had only grown since.

I raised my hand. ‘Don’t!’ I said.

I needed him to stop talking about her. I didn’t have the emotional energy to think about my mother and just how much I missed her at this moment. How much I wanted her to hold me and tell me it would be okay. That she’d keep me safe. I missed her with an ache so deep that I could only truly allow myself to feel it occasionally, afraid that if I gave in to my grief, I’d fall and never get back up again.

‘But we need to talk about it, Rachel, don’t you see?’ Paul cut in. ‘We’ve been putting off talking about it so much. Arguing over stupid things rather than facing the elephant in the room. You’ve changed so much. You’re not the person you were and yes, I get that you’ve been through a traumatic loss. But we all have. You lost your mother, but I lost you. Your friends lost you. You’re unreachable, both to me and to your friends. To the girls, too, to an extent.

‘That’s why Clare and I met. She was worried about you as much as I am. We wanted to talk about what we could do to help you. If there was anything we could do to help you. She hated seeing you this way. She hated that she didn’t feel she could pick up the phone and talk to you, that she couldn’t tell you that she was falling in love because you seemed to shrink away from any good news. You must have noticed that you were spending less time with her?’

‘Yes, because she was seeing someone. Someone she’d told me about, as it happens.’