‘They say that if you love someone you should set them free, and if they really love you they’ll come back to you.’

‘I don’t think I’ll be coming back.’

Jake puts his finger to my lips to hush me. ‘I can live in hope.’ He breaks down and cries in my arms. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says.

‘Me too.’

‘This guy’s a very lucky bloke.’ Jake sniffs away his tears. His voice is cracking with emotion. ‘I was too,’ he says. ‘I just wish I’d had the sense to realise it earlier.’

He holds me tightly and I wonder if either of us will ever be able to let go.

Chapter eighty-two

Chapter eighty-two

I’m not sure how much more emotion I can stand. My mother, Edie and Daisy are crying. We are all squashed into Edie’s kitchen.

‘But why are you going away?’ Daisy is inconsolable.

‘I’m going to teach children who need me.’

‘We need you!’ With a dramatic gesture, she wipes her runny nose on her hand and rubs it on my sleeve. I guess this is something that I may have to get used to in my new role as a teacher of small, snotty beings. My oldest niece, Kelly, is out. She chose to miss saying goodbye to me as she’d had a better offer of a date with the local teen heart-throb and, despite Edie’s protestations and remonstrations, Kelly decided her favourite aunt could wait whereas Daniel Evans might not. Such is the fickle world of teenagers. My two nephews were completely unconcerned about my imminent departure and barely took their attention from the television and the antics of SpongeBob SquarePants to acknowledge the announcement. Anna very rarely shows any emotion, but quietly retreated to the sanctuary of her room, and Archie is too young to care about anything other than where his next meal is coming from. It’s strange when you consider yourself at the centre of someone’s universe and yet you can spin out of their galaxy without it causing much more than a blip on the radar of their lives.

My mother, however, is going to make sure that I suffer. Her white linen handkerchief is being pressed into good service. She is sitting at the kitchen table, sobbing delicately. John, the retired architect, my mother’s paramour, is lingering on the fringes of our conversation, not quite included in the family strife yet. He has one hand on my mother’s shoulder and another wrapped round a mug of Edie’s builder’s tea—so I can see that she’s not standing on ceremony with him. John has kind eyes and flecks of steel grey in his hair. He looks like more than a match for my mother.

‘I hope this man realises exactly what you’re giving up for him,’ my mother says crisply.