Being a mother to fatherless boys is no small feat. Audrey had to be amorphous: the prison warden, the snitchy inmate, the bribe-taking guard and the compassionate parole officer all rolled into one. Marcelo had been my father’s lawyer before he started his corporate firm and had taken to hanging around after Dad’s death, I assumed because he felt sorry for my mum. He and Dad must have been friends. Don’t get the wrong idea of a man turning up in a white singlet with a power-tool (Marcelo hung bookshelves once at such a slope my mother complained they made her seasick); he just brought the chequebook to pay for one. And soon giving us a hand turned into asking for one. When Marcelo proposed, with his young daughter in tow, my mother took us out for burgers and asked if we wanted them to be part of our bubble. The fact she’d thought to ask had been enough to convince me. Michael only wanted to know if he was rich, before attacking his cheeseburger.

Growing up, there were days when it was us against her, as it often is with teenage boys; sometimes rebellion over five minutes of video games trumps fifteen years of care. But no matter how many slammed doors or shouting matches, it was always – always – the three of us against the outside world. Even Aunt Katherine only ever got one foot inside – maybe because she was Dad’s sister. My mother was there for us, and she expected us to be there for one another, above all else.

Even the law, apparently.

Part of me understood why she’d walked out of that courtroom, because I had stepped outside our bubble and was siding with the others.

I know you’re probably thinking that three years isn’t much for a murder sentence, and you’d be right. The guy – his name was Alan Holton, if you’re interested – had been shot, and it was difficult to prove whether the bullet or Michael had more to do with his death. Yes, Michael had hit Alan with his car when he stumbled onto the road after being shot, and, yes, he’d made a terrible mistake not taking him directly to a hospital, but he’d had an impeccable defence in Marcelo Garcia (famous both for his corporate law firm Garcia & Broadbridge, now one of the largest in the country, and for refusing to walk forty metres in the snow), who had leaned heavily on Alan’s notoriety as a career criminal, the ambiguity of an unaccounted-for gunman, and a gun they never found.