Brooding over it, I fed the dogs again, walked a weaving bunch of them down to the lake, trying to keep their leads straight. I filled in some paperwork for prospective adopters – it’s harder to get a rescue dog than it is to adopt a child in some places. Marilyn kept taking in the ones no one wanted, so she had five. Brandy was enough for me – I thought she’d feel betrayed if I came home with another dog. I didn’t even want her to start with. It was too much, after everything, to care for something small and helpless again. But Marilyn’s beagle Juniper – now sadly departed – had unexpected puppies and she insisted one was mine, the floppy ears and sad brown eyes irresistible. So that’s how I got Brandy.

I’d never known how to thank Marilyn for taking me in at the dog shelter. She didn’t know, of course, what I was running from when I applied for the job, but she sensed it was something. A dog is a good start when you can’t let people in. And look how far I’d come – I had a boyfriend now, even. Or I thought I did. Alex had not been in touch, after leaving me the day before to go and pick up Sam. I could only imagine what he was going through, trying to explain it to the boy. I hadn’t met Sam, not properly. We were being careful about it, trying to respect his feelings, and Anna’s. They weren’t divorced yet, it was still raw. But I’d had hopes that one day Sam, Alex and I would be a little family, Anna a friend even, all of us sharing childcare in some happy blended Scandinavian way. Stupid of me. To allow myself to hope again.