While she was at it, she might as well walk past The Ivy Inn and take Paddy out for his morning walk. It would help her reach her blasted 10,000 steps for the day, which was a struggle on the days she didn’t work in the pub. Without setting a target she knew she’d happily spend the day slumped on the sofa.

Maybe she’d get a nap later. If she was lucky.

‘You’re going to burn the waffles!’ she heard Clara shout, and she realised she had been half-asleep standing up. She definitely needed coffee, and quickly.

Once caffeinated, she set about getting Clara ready, but it was clear something was still off with her little sister. As Jo ironed her school uniform, helped her brush her teeth and put her shoes on, she was asked a hundred questions about orphans and mums and babies with no mums and what would happen if her birth mum decided she wanted her back and what if she had to leave and go back to her old home and how could Jo be sure that would never happen.

By the time Jo was trying to put Clara’s packed lunch into her school bag, Clara herself was sitting on the kitchen floor, hugging Buttercup, borderline hysterical.

‘I don’t want to go back to my old house,’ she wailed. ‘But is my other mammy all alone?’

She looked up and Jo saw her little face was twisted with pain and worry. Tears were cascading down her cheeks, which had turned a fairly dark shade of red. The pain that Clara was in felt as real to Jo as if it were her own. She’d have given everything in the world to be able to take it away.

She sat down on the floor and opened her arms wide, pulling Clara into a tight, squeezy hug as she rocked her on the floor. ‘I promise you, wee dote, you will always be here with us. We are your family. Lots of very important people all got together to talk about what would make you the very happiest in the world. And Mammy and Daddy went and spoke to them and told them how they love you to the moon and back and you were their wee girl and everyone decided that you belonged here, so they wrote it down in a big book in ink that can’t be rubbed out.’

‘And my other mammy? Did she not love me to the moon and back?’