Knowing she needed company, I fetched my colouring book and worked on my blue rabbit. After sitting opposite me, she reached into her apron, pulled out her packet of cigarettes and lit one up, while I squeaked the felt-tip, back and forth. She didn’t cry. Or talk. Or tell me how good my bunny was. Just smoked and smoked and smoked until I felt nauseous from the thick, stale air.

She put me to bed early that evening.

When tucking me in, she didn’t mention him, yet we both knew he wasn’t coming back. My heart pushed against my chest. Stuffed with things it would carry forever. But I didn’t cry. Didn’t want to make her sad.

Once she’d left, I grabbed on to Blusha, who looked at me like the dumb elephant she was, and I took one of her eyes between my fingers and twisted and twisted until it was in my hand and cotton bled through the hole. And then, then I cried.

Dr Franco put on his glasses and scribbled in his notepad. ‘That’s difficult for you to talk about, isn’t it, Constance? It felt like you’d become that little girl again.’ He gestured towards the box of tissues, which I refused to use. ‘How does it make you feel? Talking about that day?’

My hands were crossed over my chest, pushing. ‘I . . . I don’t know.’

‘It must have been hard for you. A little girl losing her father like that and never knowing why. Then your mother so tragically.’

I looked up at him, smiled. He was supposed to know things but was clueless.

‘So tell me. What have you taken away from what happened? What beliefs did young Constance create from this?’

I didn’t need to be in that stupid room to think about that. I’d always known the answer. But I humoured him. ‘Well, I suppose . . . everyone I love leaves me.’

‘Is that what you think?’

‘That’s fact. And it’s my fault.’

‘Constance, you’re not to blame for any of that. Not your father leaving . . . not your mother’s death.’

I laughed again and swiped a tissue from the box. Twisted it around my index finger.

‘You were a young child—’

‘But it was my fault, Dr Franco . . . It all was.’ The tissue seemed to have magicked into confetti, which I let fall upon my knees.

‘Why do you say that? What would make you think it was your fault?’

‘Did you not listen to what happened?’

‘I did. I listened to everything. And there was nothing that showed me it could be your fault in any way.’

‘Can I go, please? I need to get a sandwich.’

‘Of course.’ He sat back, closed his book.

I didn’t move. Aside gripping on to my ponytail with both hands.