‘Mark’s a friend,’ she said.

Ava said, ‘Is he your boyfriend?’

I nearly jumped out of my skin. Ava was standing in the doorway: she’d slunk out of the bedroom without me realising. Ava could be stealthy, and she had a knack for turning up when you didn’t expect her.

‘I think I’m a bit old for having a boyfriend,’ Mum said.

‘You’re not that old,’ Ava said. ‘You’re not even forty yet.’

Ava was sixteen, old enough to have a boyfriend herself, but she didn’t have one, had never had one, and said she didn’t want one. She poured scorn on all the boys she knew at school; they were stupid, they had BO or bad breath or bad hair, etc., etc. I could see why nobody ever asked her out; they were probably scared of her. I wasn’t an ice queen like Ava but I was too shy to be chatty like Mum, and as I wasn’t pretty either, I couldn’t see that there was much hope for me.

Mum said, ‘Thank you for reminding me how old I am,’ and rolled her eyes to show she didn’t really mind. ‘Let’s just say Mark’s a special friend.’

Ava didn’t look too thrilled about this. She folded her arms and raised her eyebrows, as if Mum had done something suspect. ‘Oh, really? Is he going to be sending you more presents?’

‘I think I’m going to be seeing a bit more of him, if that’s all right with you.’

That hint of sarcasm was about as close as Mum ever got to telling Ava off. I was the child of the household and the only one who got bossed around, and she treated Ava more like another adult. Usually she consulted Ava about things and took note of her opinions and praised her for her good judgement, which I always found annoying. Especially because she never asked me.

Ava said, ‘So how did you meet? Have you been online dating or something?’

‘No way. If you want to meet idiots you don’t have to go online to do it. Plenty of them out there in real life, just walking down the street.’

‘So how, then? Did you cut his hair?’

‘Actually, I did. Then he got in touch and asked me out for lunch, and so… well, here we are.’

I thought, She’s hiding something.

This piece of knowledge arrived out of nowhere, or rather, it didn’t seem to come from me.

Ava said, ‘So you just really hit it off?’

‘Yes, we did,’ Mum said, as if that was a stupid question, as if the flowers had already answered it.

She turned her back to us and lifted the bouquet out of the sink and laid it down on the worktop and let the water out.

‘When are you going to see him again?’ Ava wanted to know.

‘I don’t know. Soon, I expect.’

Mum carefully detached the note from the flowers and tucked it in her pocket. She was going to keep it somewhere, long after the flowers had wilted and been thrown out. A memento. A marker of something significant. How long was it since somebody other than us had sent her love?