Feeling protective of her mum, she set down her own cake fork. She picked a strawberry off her tart and made a great show of licking cream off each of her fingers. “Hmm-mmm,” Liv said, while staring at the red-haired woman. “Shall we take a look at your photos, Mum?”

Carol set the box down on top of the table and took off the lid.

Liv took out a stack of photos and leafed through them. She’d seen some of them before, but not others. One was of her mum and dad holding candy floss. In another, Liv stood patting a donkey. There was one of her dad feeding pigeons, and another showed him sitting in the park reading.

She came across a pair of theater tickets with the stubs still attached. “You didn’t use them?” she said.

“Oh, I’ve not seen those for ages. They must have been hiding,” Carol said. She took them out of Liv’s hand before she could look at them properly. “West Side Story, the matinee performance. I really wanted to see it and your dad treated me.” Her eyes became misty and she lowered the tickets, staring at them for a long time.

“Mum?” Liv said, as she watched a tear trickle down her mum’s cheek. “Are you okay?”

Carol nodded slightly, then sniffed. “We’d agreed to meet at the park gates, to walk to the theater together,” she said, her voice quavering. “We’d been having a few arguments and your dad bought me the tickets to say sorry.

“He was late and I stood there waiting for him, for well over half an hour. I was annoyed at him but worried, too. When he didn’t arrive, I set off on my own.”

Liv frowned. It didn’t sound like her dad to leave her mum waiting. “What had you been arguing about?” she said.

“The amount of time he spent at work.” Carol sighed. “He always gave his students his full attention, nurturing their talent. Some were needier than others. He thought I was fine at home. I had cleaning jobs, I had you, I belonged to a book club. But I felt neglected by him, unfulfilled somehow, and I told him so. Several times. Things changed for a little while, then slipped again. I felt like I might be losing him...”

Liv knew how that felt. Jake seemed to be drifting away from her, too. “What happened?” she said.

“I tried to shock him, I suppose. I gave him an ultimatum, even mentioned divorce. I made an appointment to see a solicitor. I didn’t mean it of course, just wanted him to listen and notice me again. Take things seriously. And it worked. He apologized, said he hadn’t been thinking clearly. He was under a lot of strain at work. He still wanted me, and our family, just as it was. He bought me the theater tickets and things got much better.”