‘I mean… like get a puppy. Or camp out under the stars. I want to host a party, full of noise and laughter and the kind of friends who push the table to one side to make room for dancing.’ I sighed, before taking a bite of fudge cake. ‘I have so many dreams about how life would be, once I’ve found the person to do it with. But they seem to just keep getting further away the older I get. How am I supposed to find a partner, when I can’t even make it to a first date?’

Linda sipped her tea. ‘Perhaps it’s time to stop waiting.’

She didn’t add what we both knew to be true – I stood no chance of finding a man who wanted to share my current life, unless he was also prepared to share it with my mother. I had met Jonathan in my final year at Nottingham University (commuting every day from home). Back then, it was probably only natural that Mum and I were close, given that it had been the two of us for so long. It was as Jonathan and I grew more serious that her mystery pains began, and as her illness grew worse, alongside the anxiety, I ended up having to repeatedly prioritise her over Jonathan.

The frailer she grew, the clearer it became quite how much she needed me. She told Jonathan, several times, that I was ‘the man of the house’ and once she reduced her hours at the shop it seemed sensible to transfer household accounts to my name. After a few months, she had deteriorated to the point where she couldn’t drive any more, so also depended on me for lifts.

For three years Jonathan was inordinately patient. When he asked me to marry him on my twenty-fourth birthday, I said that I couldn’t leave Mum when she was still so ill. He asked again, twice more, over the next year, sure that we could make it work, even offering to pay for some home help for her. I dithered and delayed answering, until, eventually, his patience ran out. He said that as much as he loved me, he couldn’t handle always coming second. It hurt him too much to see me trapped in what he called a toxic relationship and if I wasn’t prepared to build some boundaries, we weren’t going to make it.

I was shocked. How could he ask me to build boundaries when she was so ill, and still had no diagnosis?

How dare he make me choose between him and my mother?

When he quietly suggested that Mum had subconsciously imagined the symptoms because she was scared to lose me, I was beyond furious. And when in the argument that ensued he took it a step further, accusing her of deliberately making them up, that was it. We were over.