Then her eyes sprung open, her hands moving to prayer position at her heart. Her eyes were shining, her laser focus back on me. I checked myself. Was joy really that hard for me to contemplate? Was it somehow dirty to me?

‘The light in me honours the light in you,’ she said, bowing deeply towards me. ‘Namaste.’

‘Namaste,’ I said, copying the gesture, familiar from the yoga classes I’d occasionally manage when my hangovers allowed.

‘Until we meet again…’ she said.

I booked to come back the following Monday before I’d even left the room. It was five days away – I couldn’t even wait a week.

LILY

When I look back, it’s hard not to curse my own naivety. The fact is, I wanted to believe that I’d solved the problem. After all, I’d solved bigger, darker problems before. Perhaps by then I believed I was invincible.

When Rachel called me, the apologies that I’d been angrily craving finally erupting out of her, I let myself feel the relief. When Amber – the self-appointed queen of patient/client confidentiality – told me that their session had been a ‘deeply healing experience’, I forgave her the Californian syrup and celebrated the good news.

My self-belief wasn’t narcissism – it was the absolute opposite. Everything I did, I did for my family. I sacrificed every last vestige of my own peace of mind so that they could sleep at night.

How was I to know that my ‘solving the problem’ was me simply seeding the ground for far bigger issues to grow?

No one ever acknowledges that it was unadulterated love that drove me to do what I did.

RACHEL

It was me that arrived at the restaurant first. Mum’s shock was visible when she came through the door – she was used to my trickle of texts – sorry, sorry, sorry – which would start to arrive ten or twenty minutes before we were due to meet. I’d find a distraction – an urgent piece of work, a sweatshirt with a slogan on it in the window of a shop – and somehow the time would slink away, and I’d arrive to find her with those pink splashes on her perfect cheekbones like two red flags marking danger.

I stood up to greet her, my heart unexpectedly mulching inside my chest at the sight of her smile – genuine, unguarded. For once I had made her happy.

‘Hi, darling,’ she said, her eyes flicking across the white tablecloth. A single bottle of San Pellegrino, a full glass. The most daring thing was the slice of lime floating across the surface. More happiness. Could it really be this easy to make our relationship work?

‘Hi, Mum,’ I said, hugging her properly. She hugged me back, tightly.