She stared at the bowl, trying to decide what to do with it. It was only a silly bowl but its future now seemed like the most important thing in the world. She didn’t even like the damn thing but it was a symbol of her marriage, her intent. Did she bury it in a cupboard, never to be seen again or did she put it out on display, a proud emblem of their shared past, their union. She quickly hand-washed it and left it out to dry on the kitchen surface. She’d put fruit in it.

She was cleaning the downstairs loo when the children arrived just before lunchtime. They bustled into the house with barely a glance at their mother and raced up the stairs, jostling each other out of the way as they went, desperate to have first dibs at the best bedroom. Within less than a minute they were bickering and she marched up the stairs, put her hands on her hips and started dishing out instructions.

‘Ellie and Indie, you’re sharing the big bedroom at the front until the loft conversion’s done. Me and Daddy are in the one next door. Benji and Freddy, you two are in the back bedrooms. We’ve already put your furniture and boxes in there so there’s no room for negotiation.’

The boys raced towards their allocated bedrooms without further ado and Eloise, known to everyone as Ellie, wandered amiably into her shared room too. Indie, who had become a stereotypical tweenager the minute she reached double digits, observed her mother with a sulky expression as she twirled her hair angrily around a finger.

‘Why do I have to share?’ she demanded. ‘Ellie is such a pain; she follows me everywhere and steals all my clothes. I need some privacy.’

Feeling ratty herself after a hectic morning, Angie tried to swallow the irritation that was rising up inside her, reminding herself that she had been a young girl once too, and replied: ‘It’s just until we do the loft conversion, darling, and then you’ll have a whole room to yourself.’

‘I still don’t see why the boys can’t share.’

‘There’s a much bigger age gap between the boys, Indie. It’s hardly fair to ask an eleven-year-old to share with a five-year-old who goes to bed two hours earlier. We’ve been through this.’

Indie regarded her mother sullenly. Angie wondered, not for the first time, what had happened to her sweet, angelic little girl. But then she was looking at the past through rose-tinted glasses because Indie had never been particularly angelic. She’d been trouble from the moment she was born, with her scrunched-up eyes and scowling face, her tiny fists squeezed tightly in protest as Angie tried to bathe her or dress her. She’d been the fussiest baby of the four, the toddler with the most tantrums, a stubborn pre-schooler. But she was captivating, with her huge dark eyes, olive skin and determined pout that had broken her parents’ hearts more than once over the years and was going to shatter many more when she was older. When she laughed, the whole world laughed with her, but when she was in a bad mood, they all ran for cover.