It sounds like a cliché, but as my life ended, time stopped. My gaze was dragged to Nick, my husband, bent over his phone, still disbelieving that the world wouldn’t cleave to his will, the way it had always promised him that it would. The way I had, too, cleaning away his mess like an indulgent owner with a poop bag. I looked back at my daughter, flooded with so much love that it almost tranquillized me. Surely it couldn’t be too late for her to be soothed by that? I couldn’t lose her too.

‘Everything I did, I did for this family,’ I said. ‘I know how it looks to you, but imagine how it would have been. It would have destroyed you, knowing that about your dad. You adored Esther so much too. You’re this bright star – this kind, optimistic being who loves her life. Not like me or Rachel. I promise you, you wouldn’t be that way if I’d let everything break down. I protected you!’

Sophie’s finger was stabbing at me now, and I glanced through the French windows, hoping that Nick wasn’t witnessing her display. There was no need to worry – he was still obliviously cocooned in his self-righteous rage. ‘Don’t you dare try to push the blame onto me!’ she shouted.

‘I’m not—’

‘No! It’s over now, your control over us. You’ve made Rachel carry the can for this for years – making her feel like she was making up lies, telling her she was selfish. No wonder she went off a fucking cliff! And I believed you, not her.’ Her face collapsed with an agony that I couldn’t risk feeling too deeply. ‘You made me into a terrible sister!’

‘Sophie, you need to calm down…’ I said, risking a step towards her.

She shook her head, eyes wild. ‘No, I don’t. You need to take responsibility for what you’ve done. What you’ve enabled. How many lives you’ve ruined.’

Rage welled up in me at that. My fists balled up into stones. ‘You were a child, Sophie. It was a very different time. It wasn’t all #MeToo and victimhood. That girl came into our house – a cuckoo in our beautiful nest – and systematically tried to destroy it.’

Sophie looked utterly disgusted, turning towards the windows that framed her father.

‘For God’s sake, Mum, listen to yourself. He abused a teenager! She was a victim! And you covered it up. Paying her off – Jesus, you virtually turned her into a sex worker. She’s been left relying on you.’ Her features shrivelled with contempt, her face suddenly more Rachel’s than hers. ‘And, God knows, no one needs that.’

My body arched backwards, tears erupting. I buried my face in the crook of my elbow, trying to stifle my sobs.