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He frowns. “It makes no difference to her. I’ll continue to pay child support, and call her every week, and I’ll fly up a couple of times a year to see her. So… what do you think? Will you do it?”

I’ll have to tell all my friends, my family, oh God, my father, that we’re agreeing that the marriage ended two years ago. My face burns. It means that everyone will know Jayden and I hadn’t slept together for almost two years. The whole town will realise I stayed in a dead relationship.

I get up and walk over to the sliding doors, unlock them, and pull them apart. The smell of the garden wafts in—from the freshly mown grass, lemons from the nearby trees, and jasmine and roses growing around the deck. At the end are a couple of flowers in pots with a trowel and a bag of soil that Dad was obviously in the process of repotting because they’d outgrown their current pots.

It makes me think of Mitch’s analogy about the bonsai tree, and his lovely compliment that, since I decided to buy the bookshop, I’ve started growing again. He said I’ve sounded confident and excited. That I’m not just a daughter, wife, and mother; I’m becoming me.

I’m a people pleaser. I’ve spent my life worrying about what everyone else wants.

Well, what do I want? It’s such an unusual question to ask myself that I find myself momentarily breathless.

What do I want?

I want Millie to be happy.

I want to make the bookshop a success.

And I want Mitch.

Oh, it’s so, so simple when you look at it like that.

I want to buy the bookshop and live in the gorgeous new flat that Mitch is decorating for me. I want to go to bed with him every night and wake up next to him. Make love to him every day. The thought of living with someone who loves me, who wants me, who has decided to dedicate his life to making me and my daughter happy, fills me with joy.

So what’s the point in holding on to my previous marriage by my fingertips? It doesn’t matter that I tried to make it work. For him, it was over, and he’s right—we had separate bedrooms, separate bank accounts, separate friends. For all intents and purposes, the marriage had broken down before the accident. So why not start the clock on that day?

I turn. “All right.”

His eyebrows shoot up. “Seriously?”

“Yes. You can tell your lawyer to say we separated whenever you want, and I’ll sign it.” I clear my throat. “Millie will be home soon. I’m just going to go and have a shower.”

Before he can answer, I walk out of the room, run up the stairs, and go into the bathroom. I lock the door and put the shower on.

Then I sit on the toilet, put my face in my hands, and burst into tears.

Hoping the running water will mask the noise, I sob my heart out.

I cry for the girl I was when I met him, and for everything I could have been. For the marriage I hoped would be a peony, a perennial that flowers year after year, but that turned out to be a daylily, which opens in the morning and withers by night.

I cry for Millie, because she misses her father, and the fact that he’s absent is my fault. I didn’t work hard enough to keep him happy, and I failed as a wife and mother.

Then I cry because I know that’s not true, not really. I did try, but it was out of my control. You can’t force someone to love you, and that’s even sadder, in a way.

I cry for my mum, and for my dad, because we both miss her so much, and for Millie, because she won’t get to grow up knowing her grandmother.

I cry until I have no more tears to shed.

When I’m able, I get up, strip without looking at myself in the mirror, and get in the shower. I wash my hair and body, then turn it off and come out and dry myself.

Only then do I look at my reflection. My face is red and blotchy. I feel raw, as if my insides have been scoured clean with wire wool.

It hurts. But it’s also liberating to think that all the shadows, the grime, and the rust have gone.

I’ve lived in my tiny pot for so long, I’d forgotten how it feels to stretch. I close my eyes, and the sunlight slants in from the window and warms me through. My life is my own. I don’t have to spend all day, every day trying to make someone love me anymore. Because Mitch loves me for me. The thought takes my breath away.

Wrapping my towel around me, I open the door and listen at the top of the stairs. It sounds as if they’re all in the living room. I can hear Millie talking, and Jayden answering, and Emma suggesting she tell him what games they’ve been playing.

Quietly, I walk along the hallway and go into my bedroom.