‘Okay.’ I didn’t ask why he was happy to see me, let alone why he was here. I wanted this moment to drag out forever. Before the hard questions came, and the heart-breaking answers and then Daniel went away again. ‘Do you want to check in?’

‘Yes, please. If you’ve room.’

I moved over to the check-in desk and flicked through the reservations book, Mum and Dad still not having upgraded this aspect of the system to a computer. My movements were robotically calm, but beneath the surface I was a gibbering wreck. ‘Yes, the Mallard room is free again.’

‘Perfect.’

‘Will you be needing a cot?’

‘No.’ Daniel was still grinning like a loon, but I felt a stab of disappointment that I wouldn’t get to see Hope. It was probably for the best, though. She was too young to understand any of this. I was thirty, and I could barely get my head around it.

‘Same address and phone number as last time?’

‘Yes.’

I added all the details and then paused, hand trembling, lips horribly dry. ‘Do you have any plans for the rest of the day?’

‘You.’

‘Excuse me?’ I nearly choked on my own breath.

‘Um. I mean, would you like to go for a walk, or find somewhere to get a drink or something?’

It was my turn to blink, about 300 times in quick succession.

‘Because, obviously, I’m here to see you.’

Up until this moment, if Daniel had asked to meet up, or phoned wanting to talk to me, my plan had been to say no. It had been a long, hard slog, trying to deal with the trauma of what had happened with Lucy, on top of my whole life tumbling upside down for the second time in six months. Let alone losing the man I loved, and the child I’d begun to care for like my own daughter.

I didn’t want to go over it again, to have to try to explain myself, or beg for forgiveness. I couldn’t bear to ever see that look of revulsion on his face again.

I had reached a point where I was starting to be able to live with being me, but it was so tenuous and fragile that I daren’t risk slipping back again.

But now he was here. Now he was smiling and his arms were stuck in his pockets, not folded angrily forming a barrier between us. Now he was looking at me like he had in the moment he told me he loved me…

‘I have three more rooms to clean. But I could go for a walk after that?’

If anything, Daniel’s smile grew even wider. ‘I’ll help you.’

‘No, you won’t!’ Grandma called from where she was clearly hiding round the corner. ‘Me and your dad’ll sort the rooms. You go off and kiss and make up or whatever it is you need to do. We won’t expect you back until nightfall.’

‘Well,’ Mum retorted, from where she must have been lurking right beside Grandma. ‘There is a mountain of breakfast prep still to do, and the back stairs need a proper vacuum…’