Arriving home late on Sunday evening, I unlocked the front door and crept quietly into the hall so I didn’t wake Emma and Rosie. But when I walked into the kitchen, Emma was sitting at the table, which surprised me; she wasn’t usually up this late. She looked up from her phone and smiled.

‘Had a good time?’ she whispered quietly.

‘Yes, I’m surprised you’re still up.’

‘Yeah, you look surprised.’

‘It’s the Botox… or is it the fake lashes?’

‘Mandy really went for it this time, didn’t she?’ Emma said, scrutinising my face.

‘It could have been worse – I’m just glad I only let her at my face,’ I whispered, and we giggled quietly, then Emma snorted and that made us giggle even more. Rosie was a scarily light sleeper and we automatically kept our voices low once she was in bed. Having to be quiet in the evening was something Dan could never quite get used to – he’d laugh loudly, shout through to me in another room and be generally noisy at all hours. Then Rosie would appear at the top of the stairs in her Frozen pyjamas with a cheeky smile on her face wanting to ‘play hide-and-seek with Dam’.

I put the kettle on and showed Emma photos of the chateau, reliving every moment and longing to be back there with him.

‘Sounds wonderful,’ she smiled.

She sipped her tea, the light from her phone shining on her face – still my little girl. And just like when she was small, I searched her eyes, looking to see if she was happy or sad, and if it was the latter, what I could do to change that? But as they grow older, it gets harder – it’s not just about kissing a grazed knee better, it’s often more complicated. She’d met someone recently through work, and I know he made her happy, but he lived in Scotland and it wasn’t easy for them. Still, I had to leave her be. It was hard enough having her mother live with her, let alone trying to impinge on her love life.

Emma was starting a new job tomorrow, a really great promotion to executive in the PR company she worked for. This meant I’d need to be around more for Rosie, which I was happy to do, but Emma never took me for granted. ‘Mum, I don’t want you to give up your independence for my childcare,’ she’d said, but I assured her I wasn’t giving anything up, it was my choice to be there for her. I wouldn’t have it any other way and we had enrolled Rosie at the university crèche so Emma could throw herself into her career, I could continue with my degree and Rosie would be with me. Emma would work the long hours necessary in the week and spend weekends with Rosie, while I caught up on essays and worked at my old hairdresser’s, Curl Up and Dye.

The salon had always been the craziest place to spend one’s days. From staff to customers, all of human life was there, and it wanted its hair done. My old boss Sue had left the salon a couple of years before to live in Spain with the toy boy she’d met on Tinder, who’d rinsed her harder than any shampoo and blow-dry, leaving her in Ibiza in nothing but the clothes she stood up in. Having sold the salon to the beauty therapist Mandy (who’d come into a little money on the death of her granddad), there was nothing left for Sue in the Midlands after the Ibiza debacle, so she’d headed to Devon, where she found work at an ice cream café. She kept in touch mainly by text and postcards, keen to describe her lovely new life, from the amazing ice cream to ‘the pink concubines’, which apparently grew up her trellis. She still hadn’t found love, and if those ‘concubines’ were anything to go by, it seemed she still hadn’t found a cure for those malapropisms either.

I sipped my tea as Emma scrolled on her phone, both happy together in our own little worlds.

‘You okay, about tomorrow, first day?’ I asked gently.

‘Bit nervous,’ she smiled, putting down the phone. ‘I just hope everyone’s nice.’

‘I’m sure they are. And they’ll love you – how could they not?’

She chuckled. ‘You would say that, Mum, you’re slightly biased.’

I blew her a kiss across the table and she caught it.

‘I’d better go to bed – need to be fresh for the morning,’ she sighed.

We caught hands as she left the kitchen, and not for the first time I felt that maternal pang, wishing she didn’t have to go through life’s tricky bits. It felt like her first day at school and I wished I could be there holding her hand at every turn. I knew I could be a bit of a helicopter mother, but Emma was my only child and I just wanted her to be happy and if I could help that happen, then I was happy too. But all I was feeling now was guilty because I couldn’t make Emma confident about starting a new job, I couldn’t help Dan feel fulfilled and I couldn’t afford to take Rosie to Disney World. Even remembering Sue’s advice about putting myself first for a change wasn’t helping. She was my best friend who always looked out for me and I missed her now. She’d been the one to encourage me to leave my marriage and it had transformed me, turning me into who I was now: more confident, more happy, more fulfilled and loved. Oh yes, I was to mis-quote Bridget Jones, one of the ‘smug unmarrieds’.

I just wished I could shake the niggle in the back of my head that had been there since Dan had talked about how he felt like he should be doing something more. I hoped it was just a passing feeling, but it was his free spirit that had drawn me to him in the first place and I couldn’t blame him for wanting a change from the daily routine in the deli.

He needed to be stimulated, inspired and the little deli on the little high street wasn’t doing it for him – I just hoped I still was. Dan needed something special to take him out of himself, and I thought about us both running away for a few weeks over the summer. I had a long summer off uni but reminded myself that with Emma’s new job, Rosie would be totally dependent on me.

It would be fine, wouldn’t it? Everything would work out, and Dan had said it was all good, so I had to believe him and stop worrying. Then I suddenly remembered I hadn’t finished my essay, ‘A Feminist Critique of The Great Gatsby’, and it was due in the next day. I jumped up, my previous niggles and worries and guilt instantly wiped out by this more immediate concern, and silently chastising myself, I gathered all my notes, my laptop and my copy of the novel (a gift from Dan before I’d started studying) and went upstairs to spend a few hours with F. Scott Fitzgerald.

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The following morning I was woken very early by Rosie, who jumped on me from a great height, causing me to scream loudly.

‘Nanny… where’s Dam?’ she said, from her position sitting on my chest.

‘He’s at his flat, he’ll come over later,’ I said, rubbing my eyes.

‘I want to see Dam.’ Her bottom lip was torn between a quiver and a pout.

‘Yes, you will see Dan, sweetie,’ I said, reaching for my handbag near the bed with one hand and holding my granddaughter upright with the other so she didn’t fall. She was watching me like a hawk; I always brought her a little something back from my travels and this time it was a Parisian doll, wrapped in paper covered in outlines of the map of Paris. I could see the excitement in her eyes as she tried, in her three-year-old way, to do as Mummy and Nanny had always taught her and not ask for gifts, but wait to receive them. I had to smile, she was almost sitting on her hands as I gave her the present.

‘Look, this is what Paris looks like from the sky,’ I said. I should have known better, trying to explain a map to a three-year-old who only wanted what was inside, as all restraint was lost as she tore at the paper I’d lovingly chosen and wrapped, while squealing with excitement.

‘LOOK,’ she shouted, thrusting the doll at me, once she was released from her paper prison. ‘A nice lady,’ she waved the doll in her long, green frills and hat in the air, and pronounced her to be ‘a dancing Pawis lady…’ Eager to tell anyone and everyone of this new acquisition, she leapt off the bed and into Emma’s room, shouting, ‘MUM, Dam gave me a present, a dancing lady…’ She always assumed the gifts I’d brought back from our travels were chosen by Dan, which often they were. She couldn’t articulate this, but it was obviously important for her to be ever-present to him, and as she danced and twirled between mine and Emma’s bedrooms, I smiled at this.

Rosie had now transformed the elegant doll into an aeroplane. She was making loud, wet, blasting noises as the flying doll crashed into ‘the mountains’, which were apparently formed by my knees under the bedcovers.

Emma was standing in the doorway of my bedroom, already dressed in her suit and looking every inch the career woman I’d always wanted her to be. It was her first day in the new job and I was so proud. Yes, it would mean longer hours and a huge commitment, but I was delighted to be there so she could take this next step.

‘Do you think she’s a tomboy?’ my daughter smiled, ruffling her little girl’s hair as Rosie contorted the doll into an unnatural position I was sure no human could achieve.

‘Probably – you were, I bought you all kinds of girly toys when you were little, but they usually ended up in a war zone,’ I said. I was a little distracted about the role my knees were playing in this plane crashing scenario, as the doll ‘crashed’ face down on the ‘mountain’.

‘Do my knees look big in this?’ Emma giggled, nodding at the scene around my legs.

I laughed, and Rosie laughed along, always happy to join in, even if she didn’t understand a word of what we were saying. It was these moments I loved, just the three of us laughing together over nothing. I knew from experience that these moments were fleeting and precious – and I was glad to be there for my family. I wasn’t worrying about what the future held for any of us, just enjoying the here and now, because it isn’t here for long.