I hang up. My arm drops to my side and I lie there, looking up at the sunlight filtering through the leaves, remembering being eleven, when the only thing I had to worry about was staying upright on roller-skates. I long to go back to that time, when I was still me, when my parents were still mine, when I knew my place in the world. Dad has lots of photos in his house – I’ve seen them so many times I can picture them in my head now. There’s one of me and Mum sitting on a wall eating ice cream, in France, I think it was – she’d taken us along on a press freebie for the travel pages. Another of the three of us, me a teenager, at Aunt Jemima’s wedding in Italy. And one of Patrick and me in my parents’ garden in Greenwich not so long after we met, his arm slung around me, a big grin on my face. These are the people who’ve shaped me, and the experiences that told me who I was. But it pains me to look at those photos now because when I do, all I see is what’s gone.

They show the person I thought I was, and tell me nothing of who I actually am.

I ache to know who that is. I ache to have a place in the world once again. That’s why, whatever my fears, however it may change things with Dad, I know I need to do this.

When Julia, Michel and the kids arrive home, I’m back from the lake, showered, and sitting on the terrace reading a book. Léa rushes to me and gives me a big hug, telling me about how much fun she had, about playing ping-pong with her friends, about the sausages on the barbecue and the tiny sip of wine she had when her parents weren’t looking.

‘I wish you were there too,’ she says, and my heart soars. I look over at Julia, standing in the doorway, and perhaps it’s my imagination, but I think I see her bristle at her daughter’s words.

‘Tomorrow,’ I say to Léa. ‘Tomorrow it’s just you, me and Luca again.’

‘Jess needs a break from us sometimes,’ Julia says. ‘She must be exhausted looking after you two all week.’

I smile at Léa, bring my face close to hers. ‘Never,’ I whisper. ‘I love it.’

‘Well, we’re lucky to have you,’ Michel shouts from the kitchen, where he’s making coffee. ‘You and Maria, both. I don’t know what we’d do without you, right Julia?’