‘I’m not going to leave you, Rachel,’ Amber crooned. ‘You’re too dear to me. You know that. And it’s healthy that you feel that way – you’re attached to me, and that’s going to help you learn to trust in other healthy bonds. Find love that’s nothing like the twisted version you were forced to witness. Forced to collude with.’ Her expression was fierce, her face both beautiful and ugly, in that unique way that it could be. ‘It makes me so angry when I think about what you went through.’

I could barely speak through my tears. ‘Don’t leave me with them. Please.’

Amber stood up and quickly crossed to the sofa, her arms wrapping tightly around me like a warm net. I huddled my body against hers, shaking.

‘What if I lose my job? What if I lose everything?’

Amber cupped my face in her hands, as intimate as a lover.

‘Bag lady fantasy? Everyone has them.’

I laughed despite myself, and in the process I remembered how to breathe. Amber ran a thumb down my cheekbone.

‘This level of trauma,’ she said, blue eyes searching my face, ‘it’s unsustainable. You need to be selfish now, protect what is working.’

I thought of Arthur: his lion’s grin, his mane of curls. Was that working?

‘I know I do,’ I said, guilty about my secret.

Amber was looking thoughtful.

‘There’s another way of looking at all of this, Rachel. You could choose to see it as your liberation. They’re not paying, and I’m not leaving. Simple maths.’

‘What do you mean?’ I said. ‘I got a C for GCSE, just FYI.’

Amber grinned at me indulgently, and I loved her for it. ‘You could leave them. Cut contact. Look at how they make you feel. Would that be so bad?’

My head was shaking almost involuntarily. ‘I couldn’t. I don’t think I could do that to her. And even if I could – she’d never let me go.’

‘Why? Why couldn’t you?’ said Amber. ‘Try and wrap words around it.’

‘I…’ I couldn’t speak, words as sharp as glass in my throat. ‘It would kill her.’

‘What does that even mean, Rachel?’ she said. ‘Do you actually think it would make her suicidal? Give her cancer?’

‘No…’

Amber looked at me so intensely that it felt as though she was X-raying my soul.

‘You know what this sounds like to me – a pact you made as a child, to protect Mummy. It probably made you feel safe, gave you a job to do, when in reality everything was so scary and out of control.’ Her voice dropped low. ‘Who knows how many lifetimes you even made it in, but I promise you, it’s a delusion. It was never your job to take care of her. She should have been looking after you.’