‘Before I became your dad. I wasn’t around enough, so when your mum wanted to take you away, what could I say? I always felt guilty like it was my fault you lost your mum, because if I wasn’t so busy with a woman, neither of you would have been there in the first place.’

A woman, that’s how Dad always described his partners, it felt like they never moved past this title to become anything else. Even when he was with Anya for those two years she was still just ‘a woman’.

But when he told his side of the story about the relationship with Yvonne, Kiama felt he picked up on something he missed the first time around. They didn’t break up because Mum died; they broke up because they didn’t want to complicate things for him growing up.

It’s hard to know you’re the reason that a couple split. He keeps thinking about it, about if they’d still be together if Mum hadn’t died. Would they have been happier in their lives if they had each other?

‘So, Special K,’ Dad says. ‘You think we should get a real tree this year?’

‘It’s November,’ Kiama says.

Over Sunday dinner last week the whole family had come together and decided to make a huge deal out of Christmas this year, to celebrate big in order to honour Nana. Kiama remembers the first one after Mum died was big too. He’d only ever spent Christmas Eve with Dad before then and found the whole day too noisy and intense, with no TV on and constant laughter around the table. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy it, it just wasn’t the same as it was with Mum back in the flat, where she’d chuck a string of fairy lights around the big cactus in the living room and allow him a mince pie for breakfast.

‘I know how you love Christmas,’ Dad says. ‘We might as well make an early start on decorating.’

Kiama sits on a stool and tugs at the lights. ‘Jesus, are you really playing Midnight Marauders again?’ The more he fiddles with the lights, the bigger the knot becomes. ‘Piece of crap,’ he mumbles.

Dad raises an eyebrow at him. ‘They’re fine, untie it slowly.’

The music is too loud, annoying. Q-Tip’s droning on but Kiama knows better than to ask for something else. It wasn’t even like Dad tried to convert him to like hip-hop anymore; he simply didn’t care what anyone else wanted to hear.

The lights get tangled beyond saving and Dad starts spraying down the counter with that bleach spray Kiama hates the smell of.

‘Alexa, turn it down,’ he calls.

‘Don’t address my woman.’