Jasmine leaned in to hug her. “I want this to be all about you,” she told her, “and Mum as well, so unless it feels that I ought to say something, or he asks me a question, I’ll just listen.”

Marcy looked across the table to where Dan was checking something on his laptop, and knowing how much he wanted this to go well, for everyone, she felt a surge of gratitude toward him. She wondered how Claudia might be reacting to seeing him on the other side of the table, taking up position with the enemy so to speak, although she’d known it was going to happen so perhaps it wasn’t upsetting her.

Turning to her, Marcy whispered, “Are you OK?”

“Yes,” Claudia replied. “Are you?”

“I’m fine. I wonder how he’s feeling right now.”

Dan said, “Nervous, I’m sure. Well, he’d probably use a different expression, but it would have the same meaning.”

Marcy couldn’t help imagining what words Archie might reach for, but she soon let it go as she began asking herself again if they were doing the right thing in coming here. After his last letter, his apology, she’d felt that it might be enough; she didn’t need to have any more to do with him, for no amount of talking, explaining, trying to understand each other, or whatever else might come up was going to change what had happened. Her face could never be properly repaired. She was disfigured now for the rest of her life. So, what was the point of it all?

“The point,” Henry had told her, “is that you’ve been talking more since you read his letters. I don’t know why or how, but they seem to have reached something in you that the rest of us haven’t managed to. Isn’t it worth finding out if seeing him really could help?”

Marcy had been surprised by that answer, for she’d expected him to be as wary as Claudia over this meeting; however, when she’d reported back to Claudia, her daughter had agreed, albeit cautiously, with Henry. So had Jasmine.

“It feels like a properly positive step,” Jasmine had said, “and if Andee and Dan are behind it I really don’t think we need to worry.”

“A lot can be to do with chemistry,” Claudia had continued, surprising Marcy further. “Don’t look like that, I’ve been reading about RJ online. If you absolutely take against him the minute you see him, we’ll know there’s no point going ahead with it, but I don’t think you will, not after the way you reacted to his letters.”