Perhaps when she settled down, bought a place of her own, she’d have a piano again. She had played as a girl, though not to Lucy’s level, but a decent standard nonetheless. It was one of the things she missed the most about not having a home to come back to. While her three friends had spent the past couple of decades accumulating more and more belongings, Izzy had gone in the opposite direction and probably had fewer possessions now – fewer clothes, fewer books, fewer gadgets, less stuff, full stop – than she had when she was twenty-one. The furniture from her late parents’ house had mostly been sold off or given to charity, apart from a few items put into storage for their sentimental value. Most of what she owned she could carry on her back, in the same tattered 70-litre rucksack she’d had since leaving Ireland fifteen years before. But maybe the time had come now to retire her beloved Berghaus.

It was only supposed to have been for a year or two in the beginning. But the longer she was away, the weaker the ties became. She’d honestly thought the opposite would be the case, that the desire for home would grow with each month, homesickness accumulating like interest on a debt as the years passed. But in fact, the longer she was away, the easier it became. A year became two, and then five, then ten. And now here she was.

She had always come back for the annual get-together with Rowan, Jennifer and Kate, and she went home to Ireland, too, from time to time, but mostly when she was home she spent the time thinking about when she would be able to leave again. And gradually, over the years, the visits home had been less and less frequent. The ties that bound to her homeland, her home town, the streets where she’d grown up, became weaker as each 2nd November came and went.

Each time the anniversary of Mark’s death approached, she dreaded it, hoping that the pain would retreat a little, at the same time hating herself for wanting to forget.

Because that felt like selfishness: it was up to her to keep the memory alive, to keep his memory alive. It was the right thing to do, simple as that. But the memory meant pain – and she’d been carrying the pain for so long now that perhaps it was finally time to ease it off her shoulders and set it down by the side of the road. It didn’t mean she would forget – she would never forget – just that it was time to move on.