“Yes. You tape them to the wounded host, and they will attach themselves and grow, and then become something completely new. You can keep going, putting as many different parts as you want, until the plant no longer resembles its original form.”

“What’s this got to do with my mom?”

“Your mom seems to be sticking all sorts of things over her wounds. Bits and pieces that don’t fit with the person she once was, that’s why she’s unrecognizable to you. Like this. It looks nothing like it used to look, trust me.”

“Are you saying that’s bad?” I asked.

She shrugged. “What do you think?”

I shrugged back. I didn’t actually know. “The divorce really messed her up. I guess finding your husband in a hot tub with someone else will do that.”

“So maybe she’s trying to repair herself with all these things? The giant billboards? The house? The lips? The books? The sexy pictures? The money? She’s trying to find something to fill the gap. The gap left by your father and the divorce.”

I sat up straight. “Are you saying I should feel sorry for her?”

“Do you?”

“Do I . . . ?” I thought about this for a moment and then that anger surged again. “No! I don’t. Her little cactus extravaganza is completely selfish and ridiculous and—” My alarm beeped and cut me off. I looked down at the time and jumped out of my seat. “I’ve got to go early today. The cactus is rushing out to a meeting and I have to get home to look after Zac.” I grabbed my drawing book.

“You’re a really good sister,” she called as I went. I stopped walking and stood there, feet frozen to the ground.

“Has anyone ever told you that?”

I shook my head. “Not really.”

“Well, you are.”

“I try. But sometimes I wish my mother did more. Instead of sexting strange guys on the internet who, for all she knows, are serial killers and stalkers, and making terrible bloody YouTube videos and trying to sell half of Cape Town because she is Barbara Palmer of Palm Luxury Realty. And it feels like we haven’t had a real conversation in years. Nothing that comes out of her mouth is real. But I guess she’s not real anymore, so how could anything she says be real, and sometimes I just think I hate her.” I said that last part and then gasped, shocked that those words had come out of my mouth. I’d thought them, but never said them. Vicki shook her head at me.