‘Can’t believe Jo’s left home,’ I said, changing the subject as I took in all the other details that spelled out home: the velvet drapes, the net curtains, Mum’s late-nineties collection of Swarovski crystal bears. ‘She says she’s enjoying it?’

‘Having the time of her life.’ Dad lifted his eyebrows over the rim of his teacup as Mum spritzed herself with her new perfume and immediately sneezed. ‘According to the one text message she has deigned to send me.’

No one would ever actually call my sister an accident (except me) but even if she wasn’t planned, my parents couldn’t have cooked up a better child if they’d tried. And they had tried (again, me). Jo was beautiful. A perfect baby with silky, straight hair, a button nose and the biggest blue eyes you’d ever seen, which was why, when I passed all my exams at sixteen and jokingly told everyone I was the brains of the family and baby Jo was the beauty, I didn’t mind so much that they agreed with me. It stung a bit more when she grew up and turned out to be an actual genius as well as shockingly beautiful. Where was the fairness in that?

‘One in, one out,’ Dad said as he passed me the biscuit tin. ‘Just when I thought we’d finally got the house to ourselves.’

‘Obviously, we discussed the timing,’ I joked. ‘Didn’t want to leave the two of you here on your own to go mental.’

He fixed me with a look that suggested he got the joke, he just didn’t think it was funny.

‘I didn’t think we’d see you back so soon, everything seemed to be going so well. Thought you’d stay over there a bit longer,’ he added, his voice lilting up and down as he avoided asking his real question.

Why had I come home?

‘It was the right time to leave,’ I said airily, breaking a ginger nut in half and dipping it in my tea.

Dad passed me a napkin. ‘And move back in with us?’

I chewed my biscuit thoughtfully. Anyone would think he didn’t want his unemployed thirty-two-year-old daughter moving back in unexpectedly, fourteen years after she’d left home.

‘I won’t be here long,’ I told them, wiggling my left big toe into the cuff of my right sock and prising it off. Ahh, sweet relief. ‘As soon as I get a job, I’ll be out of the way.’

‘Any bites on the work front?’ Dad asked.

‘Lots of possibilities.’ I busied myself by balling up my socks so he wouldn’t see my face. My dad could always tell when I was lying. ‘I’ll be out of your way in a couple of weeks.’