‘You’ll get through this,’ she said, finding Robyn a pair of clean pyjamas. ‘You’re stronger than you think,’ she said, warming milk in a pan for hot chocolate. ‘We’re survivors, you and me,’ she said, as they sat together on the sofa, Robyn rosy-skinned from the bath, sipping her chocolate like an obedient little girl.

Robyn did not feel like a survivor, though. She felt as if she’d been dropped from a great height and was still lying stunned on the ground below: battered and broken and concussed. Reeling with the pain of John’s betrayal. She would never have cheated on him, never, but he had gone, just like that. Left her for this other woman half his age. This is really happening, she kept thinking in a daze. It’s not a dream or a film I’m watching, this is my life. So what do I do now?

Alison had stayed on Thursday night too, making her famous shepherd’s pie for dinner, reading Daisy’s bedtime story and teaching Sam card tricks before his bath, and this morning she’d gone off to work, promising to be back again tonight with provisions for the weekend. ‘You don’t have to, Mum,’ Robyn had said weakly, feeling she had to put up some kind of resistance, if only for the sake of her pride. (Not too much resistance, though, obviously, in case her mum withdrew the offer.)

‘I know I don’t,’ Alison had replied. ‘But I want to. Text me if you’d like anything in particular picking up. And don’t you even think about doing any housework. I can get stuck into that over the weekend.’

Thank goodness for mums who came to the rescue when the chips were down. Especially as Alison could well end up being Robyn’s last relative standing, now that John had left. Without her husband, the Mortimers might already have squeezed Robyn out of their inner circle, she thought miserably, rescinded her membership from the clan. She hadn’t just married John, after all, she had married the whole family, but now she tormented herself with visions of being shunned by her in-laws, dropped off the invitation list for Jeanie’s birthday tea parties, scissored out of the photos. It made her heart ache. Losing John would mean losing so much more besides.