Tell the Truth: Or they’ll tell it for you…

I laughed too. ‘Children can be tiring,’ I said, making a mental note to ask Grace more about her time with Angela, who I felt was hardly of an age to need a mid-morning nap.

***

Back home, I had to keep my mind on track – concentrate on my clients – even though I felt I was the one in need of the therapy session. I’d had counselling once, as part of my training. It had been good for me at the time – helped me come to terms with the fact I might never know who my father was.

Despite having all my arrangements in place, my first client cancelled because of the weather, so I trudged down the garden and disappeared into the summerhouse to do some paperwork.

A sharp knock on the window an hour later startled me.

‘Rachel, are you in there?’ I glanced over my shoulder to see a freckled face appear behind the glass, pale green eyes searching.

‘Emmy,’ I said, looking at my watch and realising it was time for her appointment. I smiled. At least Emmy would lift my mood. I enjoyed her sessions now, proud of how far she’d travelled. Maybe it was unprofessional, but we’d become good friends.

I opened the door and she stepped in, looking as though she was about to ski down a snowy mountain, dressed in an all-in-one ski-suit, and boots.

‘How’s things?’ she said, and what I wouldn’t have given at that moment to tell her everything, unburden myself. But I was here to listen to her. Put her back together again – although most of the stitching had been done. ‘God it’s hot in here,’ she went on, shimmying out of her ski-suit.

‘Take a seat,’ I said, once she was down to jeans and a cream cashmere jumper. ‘Would you like a drink?’

She shook her head, and we slipped effortlessly into therapy. I felt sure this would be her last session.

When she first came, her severe panic attacks, stammering, depression and recurring nightmares were being controlled by medication that helped her cope with her job on morning TV. Her mother had died when she was young, and the tragic stillbirth of Emmy’s baby two years ago had triggered memories of her childhood trauma. The desperate need for a mother figure in her life, at a time when she’d come so close to being a mother herself, had seen her fall apart.