Eighteen years without a single word, and there he was, a voice on the phone, sounding like he had just nipped out to the shops. The glass fell from her hand. It shattered on the kitchen tiles, splinters flying, whisky splashing up the cupboards and across the floor. Crashing out of the kitchen, she stopped in the dark hall and was confronted by a vivid memory of her ten-year-old self, sitting on the bottom stair in the moonlight.

Long after everyone else had gone to bed, she had snuck from her room to begin her nightly vigil. In her pyjamas and slippers, she clutched the paw of her panda, watching the front door, waiting, and promising to be such a good girl, if only the door would open. She would help Mummy with the baby and try her very best not to fight with Stephen, if only her prayer was answered. On the nights she heard the sobs from Mummy’s bedroom, she squeezed her eyes tighter, prayed harder, even promising to give her beloved panda away to another little girl who needed him more, if it would do any good. Most nights, she fell asleep on the stairs, waking up cold and alone, to drag panda back to bed and hold him tight, soaking his fur with her tears. Because her daddy hadn’t come home.

Her eyes fixed on the bottom stair, Lou finally allowed herself to admit the truth. Her father’s departure had ripped out her ten-year-old heart. When she had accepted that her nightly vigils and promises wouldn’t bring him home, she had built a dam, brick by brick, to protect her tender heart from the pain of knowing that the whispers of adults behind closed doors were true; her daddy had chosen a new family over his old family. He didn’t want to be her daddy anymore.

Eighteen years on, and with her defences breached, she felt that crippling pain of abandonment all over again. Every fibre of her little self had adored her father, yet she had succeeded in convincing herself that if he didn’t want her, she didn’t need him. He had taught her that to love was to feel pain. That it was safer to harden your heart than let anything or anyone get close enough to hurt you.

And now, that voice down the telephone line had brought it all back. It was the voice of bedtime stories, the voice that soothed when she woke from nightmares, the voice of the happy childhood and family life that its owner had stolen from her, stolen from Mum and Stephen and Dean. Even knowing that – even knowing the pain he had made them live through – she wanted to run to him, to have him scoop her into his arms and tell her everything would be all right. But it could never be all right. Any reconciliation now would only happen because Mum had died. She would be trading her mum’s life for her dad’s comfort.