You might say he hadn’t loved us enough to fix it. But you could also say that we’d never loved him enough to try to help him.

Should we have tried to help him?

Might it still be possible?

It was never too late. While there was life, there was always still hope. The capacity to change. Right up to the very end.

And maybe even after.

At least Dad seemed to have calmed down a little. He’d stopped tapping his foot, and was looking around at the church like a very reluctant tourist who’d resigned himself to being shut in here for the duration.

His expression suggested he would rather have been anywhere but here. But then, he’d made it. That was something. He was only staying for the ceremony; he had given some complicated excuse as to why he couldn’t hang round for the reception afterwards, involving a flight that could on no account be changed. We’d all secretly been a little bit relieved. Ava had said that she’d already witnessed one punch-up between Mark and Dad and could do without another, especially on her wedding day, and Mum had protested that neither of them would dream of doing such a thing and none of us had really believed her.

Anyway, soon enough Dad would be off on his latest urgent escape mission from his broken-down family.

Broken down, but still motoring. Yes, there was plenty of mileage in us yet.

And I was going to enjoy this. Ava’s big day.

Any wedding is always a triumph of love over the odds. Who’d have thought that Ava, my ambitious, beautiful sister, with her fancy London flat and her nice car and her job in banking, would have ended up getting hitched to… Toby Andrews, the one-time spotty no-hoper who’d had a thing about her at school? Not that Toby had spots any more, and he seemed very nice and obviously Ava liked him. And he wasn’t like either Mark or Dad… which was probably just as well. He was a chef, which was also good because Ava was a rubbish cook, so at least they’d have something decent to eat once in a while. Plus he was devoted to her, and that was the main thing.

The organ was grinding away, not solemn but definitely serious. There was plenty to look at, from the congregation – who’d have thought that Ava, never the chummiest of people, would have had upwards of a hundred guests at her wedding? – to the fine vaulted architecture and the bunches of white roses decorating the pews and the altar.

That was when I sensed it. Her. The old magic that had made me feel so cherished when I was small, and that came and went like unseasonal warm weather, or like sunshine between passing clouds.

It was as comforting as a hug: it was that real. Like having a pair of arms wrapped round me to reassure me that all would be well, and that I was loved.