‘Ah, Finn, how are you at all?’

‘I’m grand. How are you, Dad?’

‘Grand altogether. Listen, don’t be working too hard now, sure you won’t?’

I laughed.

‘No, Dad, don’t worry, I won’t,’ I said.

‘Grand altogether. Sure we’ll see you soon so, will we?’

‘Yes, Dad. Listen, I have to go, I’ll talk to you. Say goodbye to Mam for me.’

It was 10 a.m. I rang Jessica Murphy. She told me that she’d sent the kids out with their dad, and that it would suit her best if I called over right away.

Jessica’s house was a twenty-five minute walk from my house. On the way, I went back over the phone conversation with my parents. Overprotective was putting it mildly when it came to how Mam was with me. Though she never said it, I knew that she watched for signs of the damage done to me in my early years, the harm that she and Dad had done their best to repair.

After I had found out about my birth mother’s suicide, I abandoned whatever interest I had had in my roots. I had never even seen my original birth certificate. I knew as much as I needed to know. My legal parents were Doreen and Jim Fitzpatrick. My legal name was Finola Fitzpatrick. My previous identity no longer existed unless I allowed it to. I locked all of it away.

But, no matter how hard I tried, at times the pictures and sounds and feelings of that other life took control. It wasn’t something I could predict, though usually I tried to avoid – and at the same time was drawn to – anything that might trigger me. Things like this case. Whatever I did, occasionally it was like a switch flicked inside me. I had learnt how to handle myself, had a whole toolbox I used to put myself back together: music, meditation, yoga. Often I was tired of the effort.