As I say it, I feel relief rushing through me, lightening the pressure on my chest. I’ve spent so long feeling sorry for myself, grieving, obsessing over Julia’s life and what might have been mine, that I didn’t stop to think that I wouldn’t want a different life because I wouldn’t want to change one iota of my time with my parents. Not Dad’s suffocating worry about my studies and my finances. Not Mum’s ambition and support and sometimes overbearing drive for me to achieve. Not their fierce arguments about politics and history and household chores that always dissolved into wry smiles and stupid jokes and exasperated laughter. Not our dinner table banter, not Dad’s delicious Sunday roasts and Mum’s bizarre, but oddly tasty, chicken curries. It was never perfect. But it was mine, and it’s made me who I am. And perhaps that’s okay. Perhaps being me is just fine.

‘I’ve always loved you,’ Anna says. ‘I’ve always thought of you, and I’ve always loved you.’

‘Well then I’m extra lucky,’ I say, ‘because I’ve had two mothers loving me.’

SEPTEMBER 1976 Lausanne, Switzerland

SYLVIA

‘Anna?’

She and Jim were about to go home. After five days in hospital, Jessica had been given the all clear, so later that day they would start the long journey back to London by train and ferry, given Sylvia couldn’t fly so soon after the C-section. Her bags were packed, she’d said goodbye to Evelyne, thanked the nurses. But now here was Anna, crying on her own in front of the mirror in the ladies’ room – not the animal cry of a few days ago, but a desperately sad, resigned weeping that tore Sylvia’s heart out. She’d thought Anna would be feeling happier now since her baby was due to come out of intensive care later that day. Evelyne had told her she’d be able to go home soon too.

Sylvia walked up to Anna and pulled her into a hug, absorbing the girl’s sobs into her dress, feeling her body shudder. They stood like that for several minutes, Anna’s face buried in Sylvia’s shoulder, Sylvia regarding them both in the mirror, wondering how someone so clueless as she about motherhood could bring any comfort to someone else.

Gradually, Anna’s sobs became less frequent, her shudders eased. She stepped back, and Sylvia wiped the remaining tears from her face. ‘It’s going to be all right,’ she said. ‘Daniel and Evelyne will help you. And I know you can do this. You’ve coped with so much already; you can cope with this too.’

She didn’t know if that was true, and she knew Anna hadn’t understood a word she was saying, but she hoped something came across in her tone of voice, something that would help her feel brave enough to tackle the road ahead.