Amber had been so calm when I told her, her steadiness giving me strength. I rarely spoke about it in those days. Even when I hated them, they were still my family and I didn’t want to give anyone else the chance to judge them. To judge me: I was them and they were me, and I’d been burnt in the past. I’d told a boyfriend who I believed I loved at university, and later, in a row about a girl in the bar wearing a tight rugby shirt who I knew fancied him, he threw it back in my face. ‘Just because your family fuck the staff, there’s no reason for you to be such a psycho about us.’ I felt like he’d slapped me round the face, and yet I stayed with him for another whole year. In fact, he was the one who dumped me.

Amber had asked me to map out my family for me, to describe how we all related to each other. I’d described for her how Sophie was the precious afterthought whom we’d all adored. The five-year gap between us made her more like a beloved doll than a rival, so different from my combative relationship with Josh, the brother who I swear hated me on sight at six hours old.

‘Why am I sensing sadness?’ asked Amber, as I described how Sophie would toddle into my bedroom every morning shouting, ‘Raach-el, Raach-el,’ when dawn was barely breaking. ‘It’s a happy story, no?’

I’d looked down at the floor, my cheeks starting to flame. Could I really tell her? Could I really not?

‘It wasn’t Sophie who made us unhappy,’ I whispered. ‘It was what it meant for my parents.’ She’d left a long silence, waited for me to find the words. ‘She’s why Esther came.’

‘Who’s Esther?’ she asked eventually. ‘And if you’re not ready to tell me, please don’t force yourself. We have all the time you need.’

I looked up at her.

‘Sophie’s au pair,’ I said. I felt nauseous. ‘And then Dad’s girlfriend. Maybe she still is. Why else was she at the christening?’

Amber’s face was suffused with empathy. It was beautiful to watch: she saw me. She honoured my pain – she made it sacred.

‘Oh, Rachel.’

‘I was the one who walked in on them together.’

‘Who invited Esther to the christening?’ I asked, keeping my voice deliberately light.

‘Josh, I imagine,’ said Mum, giving a brittle wave to the waiter. ‘That was so delicious that I’ll have another glass,’ she said, despite the pool of wine still sitting at the bottom of the current one.

‘Really?’ I said.

‘For a time, she was a member of our family,’ said Mum. ‘She was a very important part of Sophie’s childhood.’

‘Yeah, that’s one way of putting it.’