Jess folded the tissue into a crumpled square and flattened it between her palms. “But even if that’s true, I still can’t get away from the consequences of it. She’s been lying to me for years, not just about this, about other stuff too . . .” Jess stopped herself, the truth about Zoe’s death hovering in the wings, waiting to see if it was about to be called onstage. She glanced across at Ben, had an instinctive sense that he wouldn’t judge her mum if she told him. But it was her mum’s story to tell, not hers. “I don’t know. It just feels as though everything I thought I knew about my mum has come undone. I feel like I don’t even know who she is anymore.”

“Of course you do. None of this has to change your relationship with her if you don’t want it to. She’s still the same person she was two hours ago. I totally understand that you’re upset, but do you honestly think she meant to hurt you by not telling you? Haven’t you ever done something you thought was for the best for your daughter but somehow, inadvertently, managed to upset her in the process?”

Jess thought about the fight she’d had with Mia in the car that morning, less than fifteen hours before but already feeling as though it belonged to a different lifetime. When she began to speak again her voice was small and distant as though she were whispering from the far end of a long tunnel. “But it’s not just how I feel about Mum. It’s how I feel about Dad and Lily too. So much of what I thought I knew isn’t actually true. And if everything about your past changes, where does that leave who you are in the present?”

“You’re all the same people, Jess. You just need to make adjustments in the way you think about your family. It’s what we all do, every single day, shifting the parameters, reshaping our expectations. It’s just that this adjustment is a lot bigger than most.”

Jess let Ben’s words settle in her head, rubbing her fingers against her temples. “I just don’t know how to forgive her for not telling me. I want to forgive her, I know I have to, that I’ll regret it if I don’t, but I’m just not sure I can.” She blew her nose, shoved the crumpled tissue into her handbag, pulled out a fresh one.

She detected an expression on Ben’s face that seemed strangely familiar: an expression of independence and self-sufficiency, like a crab’s shell evolved over millennia to protect what was inside. It was an expression she recognized because she’d seen it herself so many times in the mirror.

And then Ben turned to her and it was as though she could see a decision click into place. “Forgiveness is a decision, Jess. I’ve done things I never imagined my daughter would forgive me for but over the past few weeks she’s begun to let me back into her life. It’s up to you whether you want to do the same for your mum. I’m not saying it’ll be easy, but the decision is yours.”