Today was the first day of her longed-for road trip and she felt as if she was dragging every one of her eighty years along with her. Maybe it had been a mistake to indulge in cocktails. On the other hand it had been a memorable experience and she’d always believed in living in the present. When she’d been filming The Summer Seekers she and the crew had started each trip with a celebration.

She felt a pang of nostalgia for those days.

Traveling for the show had meant stepping into an alternate reality. There had been a sense of life suspended, their enjoyment intensified because they all knew it wasn’t going to last. Eventually they’d had to emerge from the bubble and return to real life and the collision between their carefully constructed temporary world and the real world had been jarring. It had always taken Kathleen a while to adjust. Liza would demand time and attention from the moment she stepped through the door, while part of her had still been inhabiting the other half of her life. She’d felt disconnected and disorientated as she’d made the change from one life to another, and frequently she’d missed a step.

She was uncomfortably aware that she hadn’t been the best mother. She’d married late in life, and pregnancy had come as a surprise. Her first reaction when the midwife had put Liza into her arms had been one of terror. A baby was more than a baby. It was responsibility, a lifetime of worry and a love so huge it threatened to burst out of you at inconvenient moments.

And there was no going back. It didn’t matter that she didn’t feel qualified, or that she knew she lacked the essential skills. Reliability, constancy and the ability to be present—that wasn’t who she was. If things had gone differently for her earlier in her twenties when she was still romantic and idealistic then maybe she would have slid more comfortably into the role, but life had shaped her differently. She’d navigated life alone successfully for almost four decades, so marriage had seemed like a big step which was why Brian had gone down on one knee three times before she’d said yes.

And then Liza arrived.

She’d felt as if her life, who she really was, had been permanently hijacked.

Confident and in control in her working life, in the role of parent she’d felt like an imposter. She wasn’t good at sharing herself emotionally. Brian had understood that. He’d understood all of it and given her the space she needed. But with her daughter she’d kept a large part of herself locked away.

Was that why Liza allowed her life to be consumed by the demands of her family? Was she compensating for Kathleen’s deficiencies?

The thought added further discomfort to her already-throbbing head.