‘Nice place,’ she said, looking around. It was a basement Italian in Marylebone, tables close together, waiters rushing between them with plates precariously balanced. It wasn’t fancy, but it was atmospheric. I’d booked it for us, and I was paying the bill. ‘Dad would like it,’ she added, then paused. ‘He wanted to crash, but he’s stuck on a contract negotiation call. He might make dessert.’

Was she wondering if that contract call even existed? I squeezed her hand, pushing away all the dark thoughts that could tank our evening. ‘He’s not invited. This is a girls’ night.’

‘There isn’t really room, anyway,’ she said, ignoring any subtext. She signalled for a passing waiter who stopped immediately, despite the full plates he was balancing. Mum had that effect on people, the confidence of a woman who’d grown up unarguably beautiful. ‘Can we have another water glass please?’

The waiter twinkled at her, his dark hair falling in a floppy cow lick over his face.

‘No wine for madam? Really?’

Mum hesitated.

‘Go on Mum, have a glass of white. It’s fine.’ I patted her hand. ‘I’m fine.’ I looked up at the waiter. ‘She’ll have a glass of Pinot Grigio.’

‘And nothing for you?’

‘Nothing for me,’ I said smugly. ‘I don’t drink.’

I’d seen Mum once since the christening, stopping by for a hastily drunk latte when she and Sophie were having breakfast in Clapham one Saturday morning. It had done what I’d hoped, successfully decompressed the building tension between us, and a couple of weeks later, I’d come up with this plan.

‘Do you really have to do that?’ Amber had asked me when I’d told her at our fourth session. ‘Does it truly feel like what you need?’ I’d felt grateful and irritated all at once. She treated me like a precious glass ornament, as if keeping me from breaking was the most important thing in the world. But sometimes it felt like that world she was inhabiting wasn’t the real one. I knew it would be more trouble than it was worth to keep Mum at arm’s length for too long.

And now we were here together, I was happy to find that I was actually glad to be with her. I wanted to share my newfound clarity. My lightness. It wasn’t all lightness though: my emotional weather was changeable. I cried at odd times – brushing my teeth, my morning face make-up free and vulnerable, or at a child straining for their sister from their pushchair at a next-door lunch table. ‘You’re coming back to life,’ said Amber, when I told her how delicate I felt. ‘You’re not numb anymore. And I’m awe-struck!’

Mum was considering me from behind her raised glass. The waiter seemed to have brought her a bucket of wine to make up for my disappointing lack of interest.