“I’m so sorry,” Jude said again. It was her refrain. Sorry sorry sorry. So sorry for your loss.

“Poor little boy,” said Danny. “He won’t even remember his dad. He’ll just be a name, a face in a photo. Me, though, I’ll always remember. I’ll never get over him.”

She stood up suddenly.

“I think I might believe you, weird as your little tale is.”

Jude decided not to be insulted by this. Her little tale was weird, after all.

“Thank you.”

“Or I might not.”

“Right.”

“I needed to see you, look at you.” She stared at Jude with an intensity that made her feel like wincing. “And you’re not actually particularly beautiful or captivating.”

“You don’t really need to say all this out loud.”

“Nothing like the picture I had of you in my head all these years. The girl no one could measure up to. Liam was, though. Beautiful, that is. Captivating.”

“I think this is a conversation you should be having with someone else.”

“Yet for some reason he chose you.”

“I chose him too, you know.”

Danny took on a sarcastic expression. “I mean, he chose you to turn to. For this favor.”

“I don’t know why he did that. As I keep saying.”

“You do keep saying it, yes. But he was having an affair with someone, even if it wasn’t you.”

“How do you know?”

“Something had changed. He was different with me.”

Jude wasn’t sure how to respond to this woman who was treating her like an intimate friend and insulting her at the same time.

“It must be complicated for you,” she said lamely.

“I’m going to find out.” Danny picked up the flowers Jude had brought. “It’s part of the mourning process,” she said.

“Acceptance,” said Jude. “Isn’t that how the mourning process ends?”

Danny nodded slowly. “Yes, but there’s anger as well. Anger is necessary, I think.”

Jude wondered how much of the anger was directed at her but then they were both distracted by a bump-bump-bump on the stairs. Danny’s face softened, looked less gaunt. “Here comes Alfie, on his bottom.”

There was a final bump and silence. Together they went out into the hall, where Danny lifted the boy and he squirmed his pliant body into hers, grasped hold of a hank of her thick dark hair. The flowers she held rested on his crown of curls.

The front door swung open and a young man in running gear stepped inside. He had red hair, a red, perspiring face, slightly jug ears, eyes so blue they looked unnatural.

“Excuse me,” he said awkwardly. He had a faint accent, Dutch perhaps, thought Jude.

“Jan,” said Danny. “Meet Jude.”

“Hi,” said Jude.

Jan put out a sweaty hand then withdrew it, wiped it on his shorts and shuffled on the spot. “Hello,” he said. “Pleased to see you.”