‘And what am I going to tell Dad when you’re supposed to pick me up and drop me at his and Caitlin’s place?’ I queried, knowing it would put Mum on edge.

Mum got up to pour herself another cup of coffee. As she poured it, she pleaded, ‘Please don’t tell your father. He doesn’t need to know.’

‘Why not?’ I demanded.

‘Remember when he threatened not to let me see you?’ she reminded me.

I raised an eyebrow. ‘Then how are we going to even see each other?’

Mum took a sip of coffee. ‘Can you please catch a train and bus here on the weekends, Phoebe? And then we can have a good time.’ She walked over to me. ‘It’ll be good here at Nana’s. We’ll have fun. You know we will, sweetie.’ She gave me a big, warm Mum-hug like no one else could.

I just sat there in her arms, motionless, feeling the numbness inside. Feeling myself pull away from Mum even more. How could she do this to me?

After breakfast, Nana drove Mum and me to a hardware store to get packing boxes before we returned home. I spent most of the morning packing all of my clothes and things.

When I was taking my books off of my shelf, a photo fell to the ground. I placed the box of books back on my dresser and picked up the photo. As soon as I looked at it, tears filled my eyes.

It was a photo of Mum, Dad and me at the beach. Dad had just finished all of his teaching and marking for the year, and he wanted to celebrate. Mum had taken the day off from work. We’d found a spot in the shade of the Glenelg jetty, laid out our things and jumped into the ocean. We’d played around for ages before having lunch at the Mexican restaurant near the esplanade and then went back to the beach to swim some more. Mum didn’t even have a drink that whole day. I don’t know how Dad managed to keep Mum from not drinking. Maybe it was because Mum was happy; maybe she wasn’t distracted by work; maybe the planets aligned. After we’d packed our beach things and walked to the car, Mum had said, ‘Hey, can we get a selfie?’ The sun was setting and as I sat on the esplanade wall, Mum and Dad threw their arms around me. Dad held out the phone and snapped away. We didn’t get another day at the beach like that again the whole summer.

I sat on the edge of the bed and sobbed, remembering how I felt about Dad and Mum and things back then.