‘You’ve made a really brave decision,’ she said softly. Her words hung in the ether; the silence broken by the ping of the kettle. ‘If you tell me where the bags are, I can do it?’

‘No, no,’ I said, finding my mojo. I made her a lemon and ginger and shoved the strongest capsule in the Nespresso for my own delight. I kept my back turned as I did it. If she thought coffee was unspiritual, I didn’t need to know about it.

Rachel’s door was closed, no sound from within. I tapped gently.

‘Is she here?’ she eventually shouted.

I opened the door. She was wearing a pair of Nick’s pyjamas, which she’d pretty much had on since she’d arrived. They must have been fetid by now, stiff with sweat. Looking at her there, hunched over her phone, you’d never know she was a thirty-something woman with a civil service job others would have killed for. I couldn’t let the pain in. I snapped at her instead.

‘Rachel… you knew she was coming at eleven. Get some clothes on. We’re paying for this.’

Amber’s words rung in my ears. Heal faster. I wondered if she had children. If she understood how hard it was to smile beatifically when they gave every indication that they simultaneously hated you and loved the soft cushion of your indulgence.

‘I know,’ she snapped back. Her eyes looked puffy. Had she been crying, or was it a byproduct of peering incessantly at all those screens? ‘I’ll be five minutes.’

I wanted to tell her that I was doing this because I cared. We cared. That we didn’t want her to plunge even further down a rabbit hole that we’d soon have no hope of freeing her from. That I wished more than anything that she was still tiny and there was no peril big enough to defeat my maternal might. But I didn’t. Perhaps I thought I’d outsourced human kindness to Amber. Perhaps I couldn’t risk too much analysis of what it was that had sent her underground.

‘Make it ten,’ I snapped. ‘Have a shower.’

She punished me for that. The minutes ticked past, Amber and I perched at opposite ends of the oatmeal linen sofa in the living room like it was a seesaw. Amber put her mug down on the occasional table, a Bridgewater one that Josh had given me when his twins were born. ‘Most Marvellous Granny,’ it said, in curly script, hearts painted all around it. I wished I hadn’t used it today: it made me feel ancient at the best of times.