Marcelo’s indignation was similarly overacted. Clutching his heart like he’d been sniped with an arrow, he may as well have put her on his shoulders and carted her around. He might have, had his shoulder, of course, not been so badly ‘injured’. The affection between them was almost tangible. Marcelo was father to only a daughter, and while he was kind to Michael and me (when he’d married my mother it was obvious he’d relished having boys to raise), Sofia would always be his little girl. Even his stony, lawyerly façade broke down in front of her, as he aped about to get a giggle the way fathers do.

‘Or we could nick a snowmobile,’ Andy said, excited by the oasis of conversation. ‘I saw a couple of them parked outside and asked if they rented them out. Groundskeeper said they’re for maintenance only. Maybe we could grease his wheels.’ He rubbed his thumb and two fingers together.

‘What are you, twelve?’ Katherine said.

‘Honey, I just thought it would be fun.’

‘Fun is the views and the atmosphere and the company, not the spa and golf balls off the roof and zooming around on a death trap.’

‘I think it sounds fun,’ I offered. Katherine reheated my meal again with another glare.

‘Thank you, Ern—’ Andy started, but Audrey interrupted with a loud cough. He turned to her. ‘What? Are we just all going to pretend like he isn’t here?’ he said, pretending I wasn’t there.

‘Andrew . . .’ Katherine warned.

‘Come on! When was the last time you all saw each other?’

Big mistake, Andy. We all knew the answer to that one.

My mother was the one to say it out loud. ‘The trial.’

Suddenly I’m back in the witness box, listening to a lawyer who keeps one hand in his pocket and the other darting a laser-pointer around the room as if the jury were feline, postulating over giant cardboard pictures of a webbed clearing that I still sometimes dream about, with arrows and lines and coloured boxes superimposed over the top. And I’m in the middle of answering a question when my mother stands and walks out, and all I can think of is why they insist on courtrooms having the tallest, heaviest, loudest wooden doors possible. Because surely something discreet is better suited to the environment, but the architect must have moonlighted as a Hollywood screenwriter and wanted dramatic entrances and exits, and really I’m only thinking about those damn noisy doors because it means I don’t have to look over at my brother in the dock.