She is holding me the way all other mothers hold their grown children. There is nothing strange in her manner today and these measured gestures are a kindness she is paying me. She knows, of course, about the break-up. I called her to tell her two nights ago. I waited until I knew I was going to see her. I couldn’t have foreseen the other thing, that happened only two days ago, and I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t need to ask her: I am sure that my mother was never a bridesmaid.

On the phone, she asked how long it had been since Neil and I ‘parted ways’. I said four weeks and she said, ‘Oh Ruth! Why didn’t you mention it?’ She is upset that I didn’t call her earlier and so she won’t ask me why he left me in person. If I hadn’t waited to call, she would’ve had to find another reason not to ask, so my calling ahead and the delay in telling her are kindnesses that I am paying her.

We don’t talk about these things in my family. We work together to avoid this kind of stressful conversation. Why dig it all up? Life is hard enough. My mother doesn’t ask me about the break-up, but this doesn’t mean that she doesn’t care about the conditions regulating my life and how they have shifted over the last month. Quite the opposite. Her nonchalant manner is her way of conveying that she knows that I am strong and require no external support: she trusts me to be all right. Right now, my mother knows that it is crucial that the lacquer of our routine remain unaltered, even though there is no one here to witness our exchange. Our Sunday evening dinner is a family tradition. Sunday rotisserie chicken might not seem like a tradition that amounts to much in those families with more than two people – a favourite restaurant for big occasions, a set date for decorating the Christmas tree, or threefold Christmas gifts: something silly, something sweet and something to use in the bathroom – but they have seen us through my first period, my first exam, my first holiday abroad and its aftermath. They are going to see us through this and we are going to be just fine.

‘Ruth,’ my mother says, holding me by the shoulders.