‘Do you still have them?’ I ask.

‘Oh no. Your mother took them after Mama found them in my room. I didn’t mean for her to see them, but then they had that big fight . . .’

Dad jumps in then, before I have the chance to ask about the fight. ‘So she really did have a secret hideaway?’ he asks and tells Zaina his own story about the cats.

While Dad and Aunt Zaina chat, my mind drifts off to my one of my favourite Mum stories. You’d think it would be something big, like a trip we took together, or a birthday, but it was just a very normal cold February morning . . .

‘Russia Globetrot,’ Mum said to the coffee-shop barista.

‘Mum!’ I laughed. ‘That’s not your name,’ I whispered, confused.

‘That’s a pretty name,’ one of the baristas commented. She spelled it as R-A-S-H-A.

‘Thank you,’ Mum smiled, not missing a beat.

It was another one of the games she liked to play. Come up with the weirdest name you can think of and see if you can get away with it.

‘Russia.’ I scrunched up my nose. ‘That’s a country.’

‘Well done,’ Mum said sarcastically.

I laughed. ‘My turn next time.’

A few weeks later, when the weather turned warmer and we got ourselves some cold drinks instead, I tried out the name ‘Picklina Elfinpants’, and the barista didn’t even blink.

‘I win!’ I said triumphantly, once we sat down.

Mum shook her head, laughing. ‘I’ll beat you next time,’ she said.

We have time, I remind myself, to make more memories.

‘Thank you,’ I eventually say when Aunt Zaina and Dad have finished chatting.

‘You are more than welcome,’ Aunt Zaina says. ‘Call me again, habibti.’

As soon as the phone call is finished I make an excuse to go to Mum’s flat. Because I think I know what the next object is going to be: a photograph of Rawan and Mum and the other girls from the night of their rehearsal.

I race through our neighbourhood and towards town to Mum’s flat, pedalling my bike with fury.

When I get there I pull out the old photo album again, and search through it desperately, looking for the picture I need to get into the next memory. But there’s nothing there.

My heart sinks, like it’s falling from the clouds, ready to hit the ground, splat. But then it soars, like a bird has caught it in its beak when I look through all our old photos.

Mum holding me just after I’m born; Mum and Dad standing next to me on my first day of primary school. My eyes prickle as I sift through them all. At the aquarium with Elle on my eighth birthday; our last family holiday at the beach, Mum trying to hold her hat down as the wind threatens to snatch it away.