Was this some sort of PTSD? Was it a delayed reaction to years of Jack making her feel insecure? Was it guilt that she was somehow to blame? Or was it just the sheer relentlessness of life, of juggling a career with four children and feeling like the wheels might fall off at any moment? She had powered through for so long, telling herself and anyone who would listen that she was fine, because fine was all she knew how to be. But what if she wasn’t fine after all?

It was the pregnancy scare that had been her final undoing. The horror at the prospect of being pregnant, the knowledge that her marriage probably wouldn’t survive it had made her realise how precarious this life she had built was. It could collapse at any moment and she’d be powerless to stop it. And underneath it all was the niggling fear that it was her fault. If she had been a better wife to Jack, if she was more doting, if she hadn’t put her career first, perhaps things would have been different for them.

She had thrown herself into work because it gave her back her identity. But she’d been hiding behind it for too long, letting it mask the cracks that were appearing at home. She needed to find a way to recalibrate, to get the balance right between work, family and marriage. If one pillar toppled, the whole tower came tumbling down.

As the screaming between her two daughters escalated on the other side of the door, she threw the covers aside in frustration.

‘Indie! Ellie! Stop that right now,’ she yelled, yanking open the bedroom door and squaring off with the girls who were standing in the hallway. Indie was clutching a piece of Ellie’s hair in her tightly shut fist. The girls stopped what they were doing and looked at her in surprise. She rarely shouted at the children.

Indie took in her dishevelled hair and dressing gown. ‘What’s up, Mum? Is it your period?’

‘No it’s not my period, it’s you two screaming at each other outside my bedroom door.’

‘Sorry, Mum.’ Ellie looked sheepish.

‘Give me that hairband,’ Angie said, yanking it from Indie’s hand. The children followed her, glancing at each other, as she marched down the stairs and threw it into the kitchen bin.

‘Why’d you do that?’ Indie demanded, looking horrified.

‘Because I’m fed up of hearing you two bickering over things. So the new rule is, if you can’t share it, I’m throwing it away.’

‘Oh great, Mum, brilliant parenting technique,’ Indie said, her temper flaring to match her mother’s.

Angie was in the mood for a full-on barney and was about to fire back when Ellie, ever the peacemaker, said: ‘Come on, Indie, let’s put a film on before bed.’

With a final, resentful glare at her mother, Indie relented and followed her little sister to the den. Angie poured herself a glass of red wine and collapsed onto a kitchen chair. This was the problem, she thought, she simply didn’t have time to think any more; she was constantly firefighting. And now she had an actual moment of peace to herself she felt restless, like she’d completely forgotten how to relax. She automatically reached for her laptop, opened up her work emails and started making her way through them. She was still there at 11pm when Jack got home, and he started when he saw her.