The only thing I was good at was writing songs, but my parents hadn’t a clue about that as they were so wrapped up in Matthew and his big dreams of being a rock star, and in Emily’s solid and steady progress into accountancy then marriage (and soon babies no doubt) without as much as a whimper from her.

I finish the phone call and go to bed, even though it’s only just five in the evening and Jack will be home soon, starving and probably hoping for a nice dinner ready for him just like he would have ready for me if I wasn’t working.

I’m a shit wife, I’m a shit daughter and I’m a shit teacher. I’m a shit musician too as I haven’t been able to lift my guitar to sing anything more than simple songs (and The Beatles) to eight-year-olds.

I put my pillow over my head in a bid to stop the noise in my mind and will myself to switch off and go to sleep so I can forget about it all.

I’m so exhausted.

‘This is not a crisis,’ says Jack later that evening over dinner, which he made before he woke me up from my pity-party slumber. ‘Please stop beating yourself up, Charlotte. It’s really not a big deal so try not to overreact to other people’s reactions. You have to be yourself and you did what’s best for you, it’s that simple. You can’t live in misery just to please your mother or anyone else.’

I push my food around the plate in front of me, knowing that my husband is talking total sense as usual, but I’m still bubbling from my conversation with my mother and I just can’t shake it off.

‘Why does it always have to be me who upsets her?’ I ask him, as if he has the answers. Luckily, he didn’t know me when I was the rebel child of the family so he has no idea how many times I casually messed up. More importantly, he doesn’t know that I hold a lot of responsibility for why my brother is in a wheelchair and I hope he never finds out. No one knows that except for me, Matthew and, of course, he who should never be named, Tom Farley.

Speaking of Tom Farley, he never did reply to my email wishing him well on his big hit song, but hey ho, that’s the least of my worries. I need to get my head together and work out what on earth I’m going to do with my future now that I’ve messed up my teaching career.