Sadness ripped through her. Ridiculous though it was, the place still felt like home. She’d clung to that last remaining piece of her childhood, unable to imagine a time when she would no longer sit in the garden or stroll across the fields to the sea.

“Dad made me promise not to put her in a home,” she said.

“Which was unfair. No one can make promises about a future they can’t foresee. And you’re not ‘putting’ her anywhere.” Sean was ever reasonable. “She’s a human being—not a garden gnome. Also, there are plenty of good residential homes.”

“I know. I have a folder bulging with glossy brochures in the back seat of the car. They make them look so good I want to check in myself. Unfortunately, I doubt my mother will feel the same way.”

Sean was scrolling through emails on his phone. “In the end it’s her choice. It has nothing to do with us.”

“It has a lot to do with us. It’s not practical to go there every weekend, and even if they weren’t in the middle of exams the twins wouldn’t come with us without complaining. It’s in the middle of nowhere, Mum.”

“Which is why we’re leaving them this weekend.”

“And that terrifies me too. What if they have a party or something?”

“Why must you always imagine the worst? Treat them like responsible humans and they’ll behave like responsible humans.”

Was it really that simple? Or was Sean’s confidence based on misplaced optimism?

“I don’t like the friends Caitlin is mixing with right now. They’re not interested in studying and they spend their weekends hanging out in the shopping mall.”

He didn’t look up. “Isn’t that normal for teenage girls?”

“She’s changed since she met Jane. She answers back and she used to be so good-natured.”

“Hormones. She’ll grow out of it.”

Sean’s parenting style was “hands off”. He thought of it as being relaxed. Liza considered it abdication.

When the twins were little they’d played with each other. Then they’d started school and invited friends round to play. Liza had found them delightful. That had all changed when they’d moved to senior school and Alice and Caitlin had made friends with a different group of girls. They were a year older. Most of them were already driving and also, Liza was sure, drinking.

The fact that she might not like her daughters’ friends was a problem that hadn’t occurred to her until the past year.

She forced her attention back to the problem of her mother. “If you could fix the roof in the garden room this weekend, that would be great. We should have spent more time maintaining the place. I feel guilty that I haven’t done enough.”