‘It’s time for his nap.’ Carson was deposited in his room, though he wasn’t sleepy at all, and we ran the lines ten, twenty, thirty times. I could have acted the part myself by the end. Then of course she had to decide what to wear to the audition, and I had to help her, blushing as she pulled outfit after outfit over her head. She was thin, so thin I could see all her ribs and the gap between her thighs, but her stomach was still saggy and stretch-marked, and her breasts loose inside her bra. That was what having kids did to you. In the end she settled on a short blue dress she thought was like something a nurse would wear, which I privately thought was try-hard but didn’t say.

She’d mostly given up on eating, desperate to lose a final three pounds before the audition. Breakfast was half a grapefruit, lunch a few cubes of cheese, dinner an undressed salad and steamed chicken breast. I saw Madison watch her. ‘Is Mommy not hungry?’ Then she would copy her mother and push aside half the lunch I’d made her as well. One day I caught her in front of the mirror, pulling up her frilly dress and exposing her pants.

‘Madison! We don’t show our underwear to people, do we?’

‘Am I fat, Casey?’

‘What?’ She was five years old.

‘My belly looks fat.’ She prodded at it with a small finger.

‘Madison, you’re a little girl. You’re supposed to look like that.’ But at dinner, I heard her ask for ‘no dressing on my salad, please’, and Abby nodded, approving. Two starving women.

Me, on the contrary, I’d reacted the other way to American life. I ate everything, cramming it in whenever I could snatch a moment, often standing up in the kitchen. The junk food Abby ordered in for David – or maybe to torment herself – was like a drug to me. Salt, sugar, fat, everything engineered to be as delicious as possible. Something’s already tasty? Why not add bacon? Or cream? Or bacon and cream and maple syrup too? It was all allowed, and I scoffed it down in front of the TV on lonely nights, when David worked at his office across town or in his study, and Abby went to bed at eight – pouring crisps into my mouth, cookie dough straight from the packet, long red liquorice whips, crunching Lifesavers, ice cream and biscuits and pancakes and anything I could get my hands on. I hadn’t weighed myself since I came out to America, but I had to suck in my stomach to button up my shorts. You can go one of two ways in Hollywood, they say, skeletal or obese, and I was haunted by the sight of Abby’s ribs.