I said a tearful goodbye to Rosie and Emma the following day, and it was one of the hardest goodbyes I’d ever had to go through. I didn’t tell Emma of my summer plans – I didn’t want to overload her with too much at a time when she already had enough on her plate. So for the next few weeks I worked at the salon and waited for my degree results to come through, and talked to ‘my girls’ most days. It would start as just a quick call from Emma but then Rosie would grab the phone and before we knew it, we’d been talking for an hour. There were Skype calls too.

I was able to chat to Rosie about everything that was familiar. I told her about bumping into her friend Elsie from the crèche who said hi, news from customers and staff at the hairdresser’s, with cleaned-up messages from Mandy (without the punctuating ‘yaas, bitch’). Meanwhile, Rosie shared snippets of her new life with me, usually from her laptop in her bedroom, supervised by Emma.

‘I love your room,’ I said, admiring the pink princess bed, the princess wallpaper, the princess cushions, princess lamp and every tomboy princess’s must – a Darth Vader. I longed to sit in there with her, playing princesses with the teddies, both in our tiaras. ‘So, is that a new princess dress too?’ I asked.

She nodded vigorously, so vigorously in fact that she lost her balance and disappeared from view. I leapt up, wanting to pick her up and help her. Thank goodness Emma was there to rub her forehead and plonk her back on her seat. Of course she was – they didn’t need me to look after them anymore, which caused a little pang in my heart.

‘Well, Nana – that wasn’t supposed to happen!’ she said, looking at the camera, rolling her eyes and straightening her crown.

I laughed softly. I didn’t want her to think I was laughing at her, but she was just so funny. How I missed her camp little mannerisms and pseudo-grown-up remarks about how she was finding her new boyfriend ‘difficult’, her friend Megan ‘tricky’, which she didn’t expand on, just rolled her eyes and folded her arms. I knew where she was coming from – I’d had a few ‘tricky’ friends in my time, they didn’t need expanding on. I’d been so involved in her big little life when she lived here, I sometimes felt an emptiness where she’d been. I also found it hard to accept that Rosie had new friends, new interests beyond what we’d shared – and would soon be starting school. I’d miss the watersheds, the special moments, the impromptu dancing, the swirling, twirling madness that made up a four-year-old.

‘Nana…’ she was saying now.

‘Yes, darling.’

‘I’m not a real princess, you know.’

‘Oh really, I thought you were?’

She shook her head again and laughed loudly. ‘Nana, you’re silly – I’m a bruddy unicorn really!’

I could hear Emma in the background muttering a reprimand, as Rosie pulled a face reminiscent of Emma’s when she was fourteen and I said she couldn’t stay out late. Here was a little girl who was ten steps ahead of everyone; her confidence, her humour and her character were testament to the fact that she was happy and secure. It was everything I wanted for her, and though I wasn’t there, I was strong enough to see this move had been good for both Rosie and Emma.

Katy Perry (our cat) had stayed behind with me because Richard suffered allergies. Obviously, Rosie was sad to leave her, so I promised she’d Skype and Rosie insisted on this at the most difficult times, like when Katy Perry went missing for three days – ‘She’s gone on holiday,’ I’d said.

‘She has to talk to me. Nana, get her back from her holidays now, there’s a good girl.’

I knew Rosie would be devastated if she thought she was missing, so I made the lies more elaborate. ‘She’s gone off in a hot-air balloon today,’ I offered, then she was out on a date with her boyfriend, gone to a birthday party, a cat fashion show. None of these were questioned; in fact, I was expected to tell Rosie all about Katy Perry’s adventures until she eventually turned up late one night, meowing for food. Today she joined us at the screen and wandered along the keyboards of my laptop, looking for somewhere to settle. ‘She’s writing a book,’ I told Rosie, who roared with laughter.

‘Read it to me, Nana,’ she said, and I realised I’d just signed myself up for the next six months to ‘reading’ a non-existent literary work supposedly written by a cat.

‘The End,’ I said one afternoon after regaling her on Skype with a particularly hilarious adventure involving Katy Perry, Keith the rabbit from next door and an empty cardboard box. In the days since Emma and Rosie had been gone, I’d been thinking a lot about my own life, and the phone calls and Skype sessions had convinced me even more that there was no reason now why I couldn’t follow my own path and head out to Australia. But I still had to break the news to Rosie – and Katy Perry was going to be my way in.

‘So, Rosie, Nana’s going away for a little while. What do you think Katy Perry would say about perhaps doing a long sleepover with Mandy?’

‘Oh, that would be fuuuun,’ she said, big, long nods almost causing the tiara to wobble off. ‘Will Katy Perry have her nails done?’ Probably, I thought, knowing Mandy, who had been delighted when I’d asked if she’d have Katy Perry. I reckoned it would be a match made in heaven because Lady Gaga (Mandy’s hamster) had died some years before and she said she’d never really got over it. According to Mandy, Lady Gaga had committed suicide because she was depressed. Despite us explaining that hamsters only had a lifespan of about two years and she’d probably died of old age, Mandy couldn’t get over it and for some time had pondered the reasons for her hamster depression. ‘It was that bloody wheel, round and round and round… You’d top yourself if you had to do that all day and night, Faye,’ she’d sobbed. Yes, Katy Perry would be as good for Mandy as she would be for her, and she’d clapped her hands like a child when I’d asked if she’d mind having her for the foreseeable.

So, telling Rosie and finding accommodation for Katy Perry had been the easy bit. Later, I called Emma to break my news to her.

‘Wow!’ she said, ‘Australia’s a long way, Mum.’

‘You’re okay with me going, aren’t you?’ I asked.

‘Absolutely I am. Mum, it’s exactly what you should do – and we can still talk to each other whenever we want. Rosie knows Nana is only a few clicks of the computer away and I think that’s really helping her settle here.’

‘Good,’ I said, pleased I was still part of Rosie’s life. Being able to chat whenever we felt like it had helped me adjust to them being away too.

So that was that. I had the blessing of my daughter, granddaughter and cat – I was on my way to Sydney and a new exciting adventure. I couldn’t wait to see Dan. We’d texted a few times, but I’d kept things cool – no declarations of undying love yet. I realised a rekindling would take some effort on my part. I had a lot of making up to do, but once I’d booked my flight and made my intentions clear, it would all come together. I just missed him so much. I wanted to be with him, sharing his new exciting life, tasting his recipes, feeling that sun on my face and his kisses on my lips – we had so much to look forward to. I was finally free to run away to Australia and a brand new life and finally say yes to the only man I’ve ever loved.

Having made up my mind, it took a matter of weeks to pack up the rest of the house (leaving my stuff in storage at Mandy’s) and book my flight. One-way. I wasn’t messing about, this time I had to show Dan that I was prepared to commit. I’d taken his heart and I’d basically turned it into mincemeat, but it was now my turn to hand my heart to him, and knowing he might still be feeling wounded from my previous rejection, I’d be upfront and clear about my feelings. So, once I’d booked my flight, I called him, eager to hear his voice, and excited to tell him I was a matter of days away.

‘Dan, I’m jumping on a plane… to Sydney.’

‘Oh.’ Silence, then, ‘You’re kidding, right?’

I was sure he wanted me there, but was probably just scared that he was letting himself in for more heartache. ‘Hey, Dan, I’m not going to back out this time – this is it, me and you for good.’

‘Oh.’

‘Is that all you have to say?’

‘Yeah, well, it’s just… There’s a lot to think about.’

I couldn’t believe his response. Jumping on a plane at a moment’s notice so we could be together was the kind of thing Dan did without a second thought. He was the one who always told me to ‘dive in’, ‘say yes to everything because life’s short’, so why wasn’t he on board with it now?

‘Unexpected? But I thought it was what you wanted?’

‘It was… It is, I just…’

‘What?’

‘I’m just surprised at this sudden… change of heart.’

‘It isn’t a change of heart, Dan,’ I said, a little hurt at this – he knew my feelings were genuine. ‘You know why I stayed here, it wasn’t about us.’

‘But it was though, and I kind of feel like you put me through it and now I’m starting to get over it, you want to fly over, like nothing happened. Do you have any idea of what you put me through, Faye?’

I took a breath. ‘Don’t be like that… I feel bad, I didn’t want to hurt you. Let’s just… I’m so sorry… Can we talk this through when I’m there?’

‘Yeah, but… I don’t know how I’ll feel,’ he said, suddenly.

‘About me?’

‘No, I know how I feel about you. Unfortunately, there’s nothing I can do about that, though for a while I wished I could. I just wonder how I’ll feel if I see you… I’m not sure I can go through it all again – I think it’s only in the last couple of months that I’ve been able to wake up without feeling like shit because you’re not there.’

The words made my heart beat quicker, but his delivery was a little harsh, and made me feel guilty and sad. We’d both been through it, I understood how he’d felt, and I knew it was all my fault.

‘Of course, I want you to come over…’ he said into the silence.

My heart lifted in relief, but I tried not to let the excitement show in my voice; we needed to work through this. I needed to show him how much I meant it this time and take it gently. ‘I understand you’ll be busy. You don’t even have to meet me at the airport, I could just come directly to your place?’

‘No… no, don’t do that. I’ll come and meet you…’ he answered.

I was finding it hard to read him without facial expressions and body language. One minute he seemed to be up and his usual happy, carefree self, but then other times he’d seem down, like he was choosing his words carefully, which wasn’t the Dan I knew. I wasn’t quite sure what was going on; I wanted to get back to us, to who we were. It all felt so distant, but that might be because we were talking over the phone, thousands of miles away from each other.

‘I don’t have your address anyway, but I could find it,’ I said, trying to lighten things by teasing him, but coming over like a pupil from the bunny-boiling school for girls. With a GCSE in Stalking.

‘Faye, I just think we need to organise it properly, no surprises.’

‘I never thought I’d hear you use the word “organise”,’ I laughed.

Dan never ‘organised’ anything ‘properly’. In fact, he never ‘organised’ anything full stop. The word wasn’t even in his vocabulary; he was the man who loved life and lived it to the full, rode mile-high waves, climbed mountains, was excited about the very existence of fig jam. He loved surprises, he was a free spirit who threw stuff into a rucksack and just went wherever the mood might take him – and now he was suggesting we ‘organise’ my arrival. Really? This was feeling slightly weird, but I told myself perhaps this new and improved Dan was a good thing. I loved his spontaneity, but perhaps his brother’s death had made him take on some responsibility and he was more in charge of his life these days?

‘Well, things are different…’ he was saying.

‘Different?’

‘Yeah, a lot’s happened, Faye.’