She needed to keep things together as much as possible. She couldn’t afford to spiral in on herself. She’d already lost the case, the respect of her colleagues and — only temporarily, she hoped — her family. If she couldn’t keep control of her head, she’d lose everything else, too.

By the time the evening rolled around, her legs felt like lead. Her mental anxiety had provided far more nervous energy than her body had provided physical energy, and by now the latter was severely lagging. She collapsed onto the sofa, hoping she’d either regain some energy or drift off to sleep, before waking up and doing it all again. She only needed to distract herself until Mark and the boys were back. That’d be enough to ground her, focus her on what she needed to do.

She needed to tell Mark about the cancer. She knew that. But how could she tell him now? It’d either look like a cynical stunt to get him to come back, or he’d realise just how long she’d kept it to herself and would be devastated at the thought that she couldn’t tell him about it.

She’d been fortunate, in a way. The cancer was ovarian, which gave very few noticeable symptoms. There was certainly nothing Mark would have spotted. The treatment, too, had been something she’d been able to hide. When she’d got the diagnosis, she was stunned. They were on the verge of leaving London for a better life. They were putting their troubles behind them. The last thing she wanted was to rock the boat, upset her family and put her brand new job in jeopardy. And when she was given the details of the proposed treatment plan — a course of paraplatin chemotherapy which would be unlikely to lead to hair loss or any noticeable side effects other than tiredness and nausea — she’d honestly believed she could get through it on her own. There had always been a decent chance of surgery being required once the chemotherapy had shrunk the tumour, but she’d told herself she’d cross that bridge when she came to it.

It had started as a matter of necessity. She’d tell Mark in a few days, she thought. Then days had become weeks, weeks became months and she’d realised there was no way she could sit him down and tell him what she’d hidden from him for so long. In any case, that would only be the tip of the iceberg.

There was a reason she didn’t open up. It wouldn’t be as simple as that. It was more a case of opening the floodgates.

She was jolted from her reverie by the sound of her phone. It was a different ring from normal. She looked at the screen. It was a FaceTime call from Josh. She accepted the call.