After that, things went from bad to worse. It was my sister Deirdre who alerted my parents to the fact that I’d lost my job. I showed up at her house one night looking for money. I probably shouldn’t have knocked on the door drunk because her eight-year-old son Elijah answered and I fell in the door on top of him. I didn’t scare him. I know that much for sure because I can still picture him laughing while she was shouting at him to go back inside. I laughed too.

I don’t think I’ve laughed since. My sister Deirdre, my brother Morgan and both my parents all moved up a gear in their quest to fix Faye. Phone calls were made. People in the know were contacted. The local GP was summoned to the house to give me the once-over and a box of pills that would help get me through the next few days. Everyone agreed, Faye needed help.

Except me. I was still happy to fall under a bus if that’s what was in store. And I almost did, but instead of a bus it was my father’s brand new Mercedes that got the job. I drove it out from the driveway in the middle of the night and ran it into a beautiful Sessile oak tree that stood tall at the bottom of my parents’ road. An image of me climbing that tree as an eight-year-old flashed in front of me just before I hit it. I was wearing denim dungarees and a pink T-shirt. My hair, tied in a ponytail, was swinging from side to side and I was about to turn around and look when – a loud crash shattered the quiet. My body lifted into the air with a force I didn’t understand. I didn’t know why I was floating in mid air. The crashing sound was followed by a hissing sound and then my head hit the windscreen. It was like I’d been whacked with a baseball bat. I could smell something burning. It got stronger… and then nothing. The next thing I remember was the screaming, the screechy, noisy, aching screaming. Someone was shouting at me, trying to open the door. I wanted to see who it was but something sticky and dark had formed a blanket over my eyes. I’m not sure how much time passed until I was pulled out by two medics and strapped onto a stretcher. My head was secured in a brace and I was put into the back of an ambulance. A stranger’s voice told me I was going to be okay. I was alive and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

Thankfully, the tree survived. As did I. The Mercedes, however, had to be replaced. I often think my dad would rather it had been the other way around.