Everyone laughed, including Dylan’s mother, whose face lit up. I could see Heather in her now, the more elfin-like features compared to Oscar’s Romanesque handsomeness. Slimmer and more ethereal too.

‘She’d have to travel all the way to the land before time for that,’ the man next to Cole said. He looked younger than Dylan and Cole, slimmer and more elfin-featured too, like his mother and Heather. But he was still tall, broad by most standards, handsome too. He was wearing a jumper, but it wasn’t plain like the others. Instead, it was black with primary-coloured blocks around the arms, and his black hair was spiked up. Clearly a lover of fashion like some of the younger editors I sometimes worked with in the States.

‘I’m Glenn,’ he said, waving at me.

‘The baby of the family,’ Dylan explained.

‘My baby,’ his mother said, stroking his arm.

He jokingly swept her arm away. ‘I’m twenty-five, Mother.’

‘Oh, so you don’t want that loan you asked me for this morning?’ she asked, raising a cool eyebrow.

He leant in towards her, pretending to gurgle like a baby. ‘Yes please, Mama.’

Everyone laughed.

‘I’m Alison,’ the woman sitting beside Rhonda said. ‘One of the sisters,’ she added. She was wearing a long flowing dress and a tribal necklace, henna tattoos on her hands. She looked tanned compared to the others and I guessed was the oldest of the siblings, maybe in her late thirties.

‘Nice to meet you all,’ I said. ‘I appreciate you inviting me into your home despite—’

‘Illegally entering our land,’ Dylan’s mother finished for me in a cold voice, all the warmth she’d just shown to her family gone.

Everyone went quiet. It was clear she was the head of this family.

‘Mother …’ Dylan said in a low voice.

‘But she did, didn’t she?’ she replied.

‘For the right reasons, Mairi,’ her husband said.

‘No, she’s right,’ I said. ‘I shouldn’t have done it. I get carried away sometimes. Someone I used to know …’ I swallowed, the memory of my recent loss still so painful. I looked down at my napkin, pulling at it with my fingers. ‘He told me there’s a fine line between determination and rudeness.’ I looked up into Mairi’s eyes, suddenly so desperate for her approval, for all of their approval. ‘I crossed that line today. This is your land, your home. I was wrong and I will leave now, if that’s what you feel is best.’