When her father died the unequivocal sharpness of her grief, its plainness, was a relief; she abandoned herself to it, weeping alone in the shower with the unbridled fervour of a child, like Maddie when something unmentionable is wrong and she regresses in Amy’s arms, burrowing in and keening, before she shoves off again, stony with embarrassment. Amy feels responsible for all of them: her children; her husband’s children; his ailing ex-wife; Esther. On weekends, when she visits the building where her mother lives she sees daughters, sons, grand-children bringing food and flowers and school projects to show their old ones. Impossible to know whether they are acting out of love or a sense of obligation, or whether it matters.

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