A smaller basket, woven cane, not full, but almost, of the cards and pictures made by Will in those same years. He drew less, gave less, than his sister, but the things he did make and give were heart-busting. A pastel-coloured, pencil-drawn, comic strip in which he is Super Will, with cape and tights and all, rescuing his aunty from a snarling dog and dropping them both into a vat of whipped cream at the end. A paper clock with the words Time for kisses across its middle. She remembers him explaining it to her, his little face thrilled with the cleverness: See, whatever time you want a kiss, you just move the hands to the time it is! See?

And at the far shore of this lumpy, lovely sea, in the middle of the top shelf of the wardrobe, is the box she needs to have but never needs to open or touch. She knows its contents by heart.

Dear Daddy Dear Daddy Dear Daddy Dear Daddy Dear Daddy Dear Daddy Dear Daddy and never a Dear Nicole, Dear Daughter, Dear Nicky, Dear Nic in return.

In the first little while after Steve found their family, he would take Michelle and Nic up to Norton Street for gelato and ask them endless questions about their father. Michelle always said she didn’t remember anything, tried to change the subject. Nic didn’t remember much either, but what she did—a big, hard belly you could play like a drum; a laugh that sometimes turned into a coughing fit and, just when you thought he was going to choke, back into a laugh again; thick, furry arms that would lift you up until you could touch the ceiling with your fingertips and then bring you down onto his wide, fuzzy shoulders so you could bury your fingers and sometimes face in his thick, brown, curly hair—she gave to Steve. Michelle glared at her—they weren’t meant to talk about Dad, not ever, to anyone—but hearing about him made Steve smile. He said that maybe there’d been a mix-up and the man he met in the prison meeting room wasn’t their dad at all. That man was scrawny with wispy, white hair and gave the impression he’d never smiled let alone raucously belly-laughed in his life.

After a few months of this Michelle slammed her little palms on the plastic table, sending gelato cups skittering close to the edge. The only thing we need to know about our dad, she told Steve in an end-of-conversation tone, is that he loves us very much and can’t wait to get out and see us again. Nic had agreed, of course, and poor Steve must have known it wasn’t true, but he’d hugged them both to him, one under each arm, and said, True words, last words, yeah.