‘Dom Perignon, I think,’ Mum tells the waiter, and I see Mrs Palmer clock the price and her skin goes from off-white to blue. My mother insists it’s her treat.

‘To our three extraordinary children!’ Mum raises her glass and we all follow suit.

‘You got that right,’ Kerry’s mother says. ‘For years, I’ve been convinced they gave me the wrong baby to take home from the hospital, with the rest of us such noisy gobshites. Turns out she had her own special talents. She’s our star!’

Kerry looks as if she wants to hide under the table. I know the feeling.

‘I see star quality in my boy, too.’ Mum nudges me. ‘A footballer’s career is short, but he’ll make a brilliant pundit when the time comes. He’s got the looks, right, Kerry?’

Kerry’s face turns red and she stares down at the shepherd’s pie Mum ordered for all of us because it’s what you have at The Ivy.

Does that mean Kerry fancies me?

‘Handsome is fine, but you want a man to have a brain,’ Mrs Palmer says, winking at Tim.

OK. That means I’m not Kerry’s type. And she’s definitely not mine.

My mother scowls. ‘Joel is extremely bright. If it hadn’t been for his Dolphins apprenticeship, he’d be off to university.’

This is news to me. I never took school seriously. I already knew what I was born to do. ‘Stop embarrassing me, Mum!’

‘Oh dear, they never change, do they?’ She laughs but her eyes look . . . what is that? Afraid? Hurt? It’s harder for me now to read faces or say the right thing. Sometimes it’s like some of the kinder bits of the old me didn’t come back when the rest of me did.

But I do know she and Dad went through hell when I got sick. I can’t imagine how it’d feel to have your kid lying there, not knowing if he’s ever going to wake up or not.

The doctors still can’t say what made my heart stop, but they’re leaning towards some faulty gene I might have inherited from Mum or Dad.

They say it doesn’t change anything right now, but told us I could see a genetic specialist when I’m older and want kids of my own.

I may not know what my future holds, but I’m certain about one thing: I will never be a dad because I wouldn’t wish what’s happened to me on my worst enemy, never mind a kid.

Chapter 12: Kerry

4 March 2000

Eighteen.

It sounds so grown-up. I can vote, get legally smashed on vodka in a pub, die for my country. Not that I’m interested in doing any of those things. But there is one new experience I do want to try.