I wanted to catch the train. It would be quicker but Grel insisted on driving. I suppose the driving took his mind off things. I thought it’d be unsafe, but in the event he was as good as gold. I sat there and thought about all the things I’d missed – the things Gemma had missed – growing up, going to school, exams, boyfriends in the living room, parties…

I’d looked forward to all of it. Having a daughter was like living my own childhood over again and I’d missed out on so much. We all had. I was furious with her because of that. And because… You see, after all those years, you try to tell yourself you’ll probably never see her again until you’re an old woman. And then this happens and the wounds are all as fresh and raw as they were when she first left. She was eighteen years old and in trouble but she was still a child to me.

How could she do that to us?

I kept remembering what that girl had told me. ‘She’s in hospital. No, she’s not hurt.’

‘But why?’ I kept saying. ‘Why’s she in hospital?’ I assumed she was having a baby.

And then at last, ‘She’s a heroin addict. She’s having severe withdrawal symptoms, apparently.’

Three and a half years. She could have died. She still could.

‘Hospital beds are for people who are sick,’ he said. In other words, she was going to be booted out. He clearly expected us to take care of her.

We walked towards the ward. Grel said, ‘A baby. She’s been taking that stuff with a baby…’ He sounded furious. We walked a bit further. He said, ‘I suppose she’ll expect us to bail her out.’

I couldn’t believe my ears. I just stopped and stared at him. She was our child. I was so angry with him, I was prepared to have a row right there in public, standing in the middle of the corridor. But when I turned on him, I saw that he wasn’t furious at all. He looked at me with big wet eyes – that’s how he cries, his eyes just get wet, and his hands hanging by his side, and his face as grey as winter rain. He looked like his whole world had been blown up.

I suppose we let Gemma down in many ways. But she let us down too. She destroyed our lives. The way Grel and I were with each other after she went. We blamed each other. The bitter, bitter arguments we’d had about what we’d said and done and what she’d said and done. It nearly wrecked our marriage. Perhaps it did wreck it. Perhaps we’re just together because we have nothing better to do.

But at least we are still together…

I took his arm and squeezed it. God knows, we’re none of us perfect. And he, God bless him, he hung his head and closed his eyes for a moment and a tear trickled down his cheek. Then we hurried on. I can take anything but Grel crying. It always makes me blub and I wanted to save any tears I had for Gemma.

At the ward I did a very selfish thing. I said to Grel, ‘I want to see her alone.’ I don’t defend it. He had as much right as me. I suppose I wanted that precious moment all to myself.

He just shook his head. I nearly said, ‘I’m a mother,’ but I bit it back just in time. Then we walked in…

My first thought was, My God, she looks like my mother. Despite everything I still thought of her as a fourteen-year-old girl. But she looked like my mother, my own mother. An old woman.

I went to sit next to her and put my hand on her hand. I wanted to make it as normal as possible for her sake, talk about home and ask her what she’d done, although how on earth we could talk about what she’d done in those years I don’t know. I didn’t want to cry, I knew I shouldn’t but I thought of all the things I’d missed and I couldn’t help it, I couldn’t get even a word of what I’d planned on saying out. I just started to weep. I tried but I couldn’t speak at all so I laid my head on her breast and I wept and I wept and I wept…

She was crying too. I knew it was all right when she started to cry. The tears said everything for us.

Then she said, ‘I want to come home, Mum, can I come home, Mum, please…?’ I nodded my head and tried to say yes, yes, and we just held one another and cried.