The moment my parents had discovered that, at just seventeen I was secretly seeing an older man, they had tried to put a stop to it. Headstrong and in love, I of course could see nothing wrong and had done everything in my power to keep the relationship going. However, discovering I was pregnant was a huge shock for all of us and I could understand now why they had been so horrified. Although not nearly as horrified as when my father tracked David down and discovered he was a married man.

‘I used to say,’ I said, smoothing the letter out in front of me, ‘that first I lost David and then I lost the baby, but I suppose he was never mine in the first place, was he? David, I mean.’

I winced as I recalled the blazing rows I had about him with my parents. I blamed them for ruining everything after they threatened to tell his wife and then when I miscarried, I blamed them for taking the baby too. Had I not moved into the hotel I didn’t know where I might have ended up.

‘You know I admire you, Hattie,’ said Dolly.

‘Why?’

‘For finding the courage to forgive your mother.’

‘I’m not sure I have forgiven her,’ I told her, ‘but you know,’ I mused, ‘sometimes, I struggle to believe she really did say that she was pleased I’d lost the baby.’

I knew she and Dad had been disappointed when they discovered my affair and devastated about the pregnancy, but Mum wasn’t cruel. She hadn’t wanted me to move out after the miscarriage, she had wanted to look after me and so her spiteful words, coming years later, were even more of a shock.

Dolly nodded and bit her lip.

‘But the look on Jonathan’s face when he told me . . .’ I carried on, ‘well, let’s just say, I knew he had to be telling the truth.’

‘And the way he said they both used to talk to him when you weren’t around,’ Dolly went on, ‘that was a shock too, wasn’t it?’

‘It was,’ I sighed, ‘we didn’t visit all that often and he always tried to play it down but whenever we left, I could tell there was something wrong, something eating away at him and I would eventually drag it out of him. He knew my relationship with them was fragile, and that’s why he never wanted to tell me.’

‘But he did in the end.’

‘Only because I made him,’ I said, slumping back in my chair as the memories and cold hard reality came flooding back. ‘Oh Dolly,’ I sobbed, ‘is sending this going to be a mistake?’

‘Only you can decide that,’ she said.

I swallowed away the lump in my throat and blinked away the gathering tears.