It had been a day of such mixed emotions, most of them negative, but there were still enough hours left in the day she might be able to salvage.

By the time she returned home, it was evening and she found a note from Ed telling her he’d gone to Surrey to see a client and he’d be back late.

For once, she was fine with that. She wanted to be alone.

Colette settled on the couch in the living room with only the side lamp for light, tucked up with her box of memories—things that were always a balm to her soul.

It was not so much a box but an old-style suitcase that had belonged to her mother and one she’d had since she was a girl.

Sadly, and despite her apparent remission, Miriam Turner had died shortly after Colette’s return from Italy—something Colette had never quite got over. To think that she’d been lazing around in the sun and living it up in restaurants and on boats, and worst of all focusing on stupid, trivial things like a summer romance, when she could have had three more weeks with her mother.

Three precious weeks she’d never get back.

She cast her mind back to that summer when she’d returned to Brighton, and Miriam had been so full of excitement to know how the trip had gone that Colette hadn’t noticed how frail her mother had become in the meantime.

Or perhaps she’d just been too preoccupied with her own stupid worries at the time.

“What was the food like?” Miriam was especially interested to learn all about Italian cuisine, and whether they should take Colette’s newfound knowledge and incorporate it into their own business. “We could try a version of cannoli in the bakery, maybe, put our own spin on it...?”

“I think that would go down really well, Mum,” Colette agreed, telling her all about zeppole, struffoli and some of the other pastries Luca had introduced her to, but her heart wasn’t in it.

When just weeks later, Miriam took to her bed with what Colette thought was just a bout of exhaustion, but passed away within days, life was once again completely upended.

And all Colette could think about was that they never had the chance to introduce the cannoli to the bakery.

She had been inconsolable as she sat by her beloved mother’s side while Miriam’s life slowly slipped away. Colette felt like the world had spun on its axis twice over.

Then her mother, her rock, was gone. Just like that.

She wasn’t prepared for the surreality of it and the absolute numbness she felt once Miriam had taken her last breath. It was like stepping off a roller coaster and being completely unable to find your footing.