‘Good luck,’ Turner smiled, as the two women shook hands in parting. ‘I’ll have my fingers crossed for you that the weather holds fair, at least.’

Anna spent the next week making sure she knew exactly what she was going to be doing when lunch club finally went ahead. The Usual Suspects were all delighted to hear that she was giving it another shot, as was Cathy, who lovingly revised the poster she had designed for the first one. Anna pinned this up on the Friday before the long weekend, taking a step back to admire the way it looked against the cornflower blue of the Fishergirl’s Luck’s front door.

Bring it on, she thought. This time, it’s happening, Douglas McKean be damned.

For a moment, Anna imagined Bren standing beside her, grinning, and smiled to herself.

Next morning, Pat appeared on Anna’s doorstep, declaring that she had come to provide help with prep.

‘I’ll be your kitchen urchin!’ she said, arms held wide as if she could hug the world, and Anna had no doubt that this woman would do it too, given the chance.

‘Thank you,’ Anna said, with a laugh. ‘Although I’m not sure there’ll be room for both of us.’

‘We’ll make it work, love,’ said Pat, as she came inside. ‘Needs must, and all that.’

The women moved around each other in the small space with efficient ease as Pat followed Anna’s instructions. Her friend’s steady, warm presence reminded Anna of cooking with her mother when she was young – it was a different energy from being in a professional kitchen and one that Anna hadn’t realized she’d missed so much until that moment. The knowledge shocked her, spun into her heart with a powerful physical pang as it occurred to Anna anew how very alone she was in the world. For all her new friends and new life, for all the fun moments she’d had with Liam, she had no family left. Pat couldn’t hug her in quite the way her mother used to. Her father wouldn’t come barrelling into the kitchen, making them all laugh as he lifted her out of the way to steal a biscuit, still warm from the oven.

Dad.

Anna looked out of the tiny window onto the ocean waves that were churning gently in the sunlight, her heart suddenly a heavy, thumping mass. She’d been so busy in recent weeks that her thoughts had turned to his loss less frequently, but now there he was, surfacing unexpectedly, his hair as untidy as ever, smile still in place.