‘I’m okay,’ was all I could manage as I tried to stop the floodgates from opening.

‘Are you sure? After what happened?’

A single tear dropped from my eye, the culmination of stress and worry, the debt, giving up my job and, of course, Ian. I tried to hold it all together as my mum reached over and rubbed my arm, staring intently at me. I felt under the microscope.

‘I’m working through it.’ I smiled and wiped my eye.

My mother looked quite well, considering. There were tell-tale signs. She still had the shakes, she couldn’t conceal those, and her eyes were tinged yellow, but there had been a drastic improvement since I last saw her. Was that Patrick’s influence?

‘You look well, Mum. Almost fighting fit,’ I said, changing the subject. No matter how I felt about her drinking, or some of the things she’d said and done when drunk, she was still my mum.

‘I don’t know about that. Listen, I’ve got my bag in the car. I thought perhaps we’d go out for dinner, or order in? I brought gin.’ I’d bet my last pound the bottle was already open, swishing around in the footwell of her Corsa. Given Mum’s penchant for alcohol, it was a wonder I drank at all. But it hadn’t always been like that. It’d only started when Dad died; it was her method of coping with losing the man she’d been married to for thirty-odd years. I could understand.

If she was intending on staying, I’d have to cancel Ian. I couldn’t leave her here by herself. Especially with what I was planning. My shoulders automatically relaxed, rolling back into their usual position. The rock in my stomach slowly dissolving. I’d had a reprieve. For tonight at least.

‘Let me get dressed.’ If I was lucky it would only be for a night and even I could put up with her drunken antics for one night. There had to be a reason for her to drive all this way? What did she want to tell me? She had said before she had some news, but we never got around to it.

In my room, I pulled on my grey loose fitting boyfriend jeans but hesitated on what to pair with them. When I was younger, Mum always berated me for my tomboy style, wanting me to dress more like a girl. Cursing my lack of backbone, I picked a soft pink jumper that was hanging up in my wardrobe. Thrust to one side, the tags still on, it might give me an easier ride.