The realisation hits me as I make my way back down to reception. I know their situations are different, but Will has a genuine concern in his voice when he talks about his father, which Luke doesn’t. He talks about his mum’s frailty and the administrative hassle of sorting out carers and the like, but he never talks about how her illness has affected him. It’s almost as if she were a client rather than his mother. Maybe he’s just very good at compartmentalising, I tell myself, but I can’t shift the growing suspicion that something isn’t right here. God, I really want to talk to Tash, but am I ready to swallow my pride and admit that she might be right? My heart is pounding as I fish my phone out of my pocket and dial her number, but it goes straight to voicemail. Of course it does. She’ll be at work.

‘Tash, it’s me,’ I say. ‘I’m sorry I’ve been giving you the silent treatment. Yes, I was very cross that you went behind my back like that, but there are some things that just aren’t adding up and I’d really appreciate some of your wisdom if you’re still speaking to me. Love you.’

13

I can’t believe I’m doing this. In fact, I stop after every few steps to consider turning around and going back to the car. I can back out and nobody need ever know that I even thought about checking up on Luke’s mum. On the other hand, if I don’t do this, the doubt that’s slowly driving a wedge between Luke and me will never go away. I know he won’t be there; he’s currently at work, so all I need to do is knock on the door, establish that the person that answers is the carer, and my fears will hopefully melt away. I pull the cap I’ve borrowed from Mike further down over my face; nobody ever looks at delivery people, but I’m not taking any risks that the carer will be able to describe me.

I agonised over the parcel for ages. What would an old lady buy online? How would an old lady with dementia even buy anything online? I mean, if she were tech-savvy, there’s every likelihood she might, but there’s no way I can risk them tracing the parcel back to me, and I’d need to include some kind of shipping label with a return address inside to make it appear genuine when they opened it, which opened a whole separate can of worms. Thankfully, Mike came to my rescue when I filled him in on the details of the plan that Tash and I came up with after we’d cried and apologised to each other.