As she hung her clothes on the washing line outside, she pictured herself wandering the sun-soaked streets of Dubrovnik. She’d spent so many years cleaning and not having the confidence to try anything else. A voice had nagged in her head for years. Will you get another job? Are you good enough? Isn’t it a bit late to move on? Now she’d managed to shoot all her own concerns down in flames.

As she was discovering more about Essie, Liv was finding things out about herself, too. She’d masterminded a meeting with Ted, been resourceful talking to Sven, proved knowledgeable about Essie’s books, and Marlon had admired her writing. She felt like a very different person to the one who sat timidly with Essie nibbling tiny cakes in the kitchen.

Before Liv went to bed that night, she found the hotel room card in her bag. She’d been in too much of a rush to hand it in to reception.

She entered the bedroom to find Jake hurriedly stuffing something under his pillow. “What’s that?” she said.

His eyes flitted. “That? Oh, nothing.”

“There’s some paper poking out.” She caught sight of words and figures.

He pushed it farther under. “It’s just a few notes.”

Liv wasn’t in the mood to question him further. She slipped her room card under her own pillow and unscrewed a jar of night cream. Johnny and Mack called out good-night and turned off their lights. “What’s this other thing you mentioned?” she asked Jake.

He lay back on his pillow. “Can you ask Essie for time off work?” he said.

She dotted cream around her eyes. “Me? Why?”

“Johnny’s got hospital appointments, a checkup and an X-ray. They’re going to assess if he needs surgery. I’ve got a heavy few weeks at work, so he’ll be in the house on his own. Remember when Mack broke his arm and couldn’t do anything for himself?”

Liv thought back to when Mack was ten, holding his wrist and blinking back tears. He’d fallen off his bike and his classmates covered his plaster cast with rude words and Minecraft stickers. He wasn’t able to wash his hair, butter toast or get dressed on his own for weeks. Liv had to promise to shut her eyes when she helped him in and out of the bath.

“Johnny’s a lot older than Mack was. He’ll be okay on his own,” she said.

She thought of how Jake’s job was always the static one, whereas hers was expected to bend and shape, and stop and start around their family. A calendar appeared in her head with the three months she had left to complete Essie’s novel, ripping off and flying away. She needed every minute she could to write. “Perhaps Mack can help out, since he’s home for the summer.”