There had been no hymns sung during the service, and the eulogy had been mercifully short. Martha had held her sister’s hand the whole time, not because she was worried Willow might cry, but to show her solidarity. It was something Martha regretted not doing in the past; she had always been too quick to criticise or judge Willow, and she had vowed never to do that again. She owed it to Willow to be a better sister, certainly a more loyal one.

But was it blind unquestioning loyalty on Martha’s part that had caused her to be so blinkered and biased when it came to their father? And loyalty too that had made Mum endure the periodic bouts of abuse to keep the family she loved together? Was there a case for there being too much loyalty within a family, that sometimes it was misplaced and not deserved? Perhaps so.

It upset her to think that because of her devoted loyalty to her father, she had lapped up the attention he had given her. That he had so obviously favoured her over Willow was something she had simply accepted. Not once had she challenged it. Why would she when she had thought that it was Willow’s fault for always annoying Dad? But now she felt sickened by the memory and she was adamant that if she and Tom were lucky enough to have more than one child, she would never favour one child over the other.

All her hostility towards Ellis had been caused by her constantly comparing him to the man who had meant the world to her. At the time it had been inconceivable to her that her mother could be so disloyal to Dad. Yet gradually she had begun to warm to Ellis, and that was before Mum’s awful revelations. In recent weeks he had been an enormous support to them all, especially Willow, giving her the keys to Waterside Cottage for as long as she wanted to live there. She planned to move in with the baby at the start of the new year, another sign that she was putting the past behind her and making a fresh start. Martha had nothing but admiration for Willow, something she’d never thought she would say. And far from being unable to cope as a new mother as she had feared, Willow took it in her stride. But then Serenity was such a sweet, placid little thing. Martha just hoped her own daughter would have the same easy-going temperament.

Her official due date was six weeks away, but both Martha and Tom were convinced, based purely on how gigantic she was, that the baby would come sooner than that, if only by a week or so. Everyone said the final weeks of pregnancy dragged, that each day felt like a week in itself, and they were right. Being on maternity leave didn’t help in that respect, but Martha had taken the decision to finish work before Christmas rather than go back for just a few weeks.