Marriage too, as it turned out.

Returning to the screen, I exit the page, but the one underneath is still open and my attention is caught by a photo of a litter of puppies needing homes. I look at their little faces gazing out at me, then check the address; it’s not far from here. Maybe I should pay a visit. After all, there’s no harm in looking, is there?

Maya

‘Don’t you pull that face at me.’

‘What face?’

‘You know exactly what face I’m talking about. The one that never smiles any more but just scowls instead.’

‘That’s not true!’ She scowled at Simon, her stepfather, across the kitchen island. ‘I smile all the time when I’m with my friends.’

‘Exactly, but not when you’re at home with your own family!’ He slammed his mug onto the countertop, causing his tea to spill onto his paperwork. ‘Now look what you’ve made me do!’

‘I didn’t make you do that!’ She was indignant. Why was everything always her fault?

The sound of the front door slamming interrupted their argument and they both fell silent as a policewoman appeared in the doorway. As she took in the scene, her face fell.

‘Mum, tell him!’ Maya was the first to speak. Relieved her mother was home from work, she swiftly made her appeal. ‘Dad won’t listen to me!’

As PC Neesha Sharma, her job was to keep the peace in the community, but now she seemed to be doing it at home all the time as well.

‘Can someone please tell me what’s going on?’ Heaving a weary sigh, she sank onto the dining-room sofa and kicked off her shoes. It was the sigh of a woman who’d just done a ten-hour shift dealing with a traffic accident, the owner of a missing cat and a fifteen-year-old boy who was injured in a gang-related knife attack. A woman who simply wanted to come home to some peace and quiet, but instead was faced with trying to calm the situation between her husband and teenage daughter. Maya saw all that in her mother’s face and felt guilty for involving her.

‘It’s Maya, she’s being completely unreasonable.’

‘Simon, please,’ her mother reasoned, but he wouldn’t listen to her, either.

‘Neesha, leave this to me. If you hadn’t allowed Maya to take time off school and go on those silly marches, this would never have happened.’

‘They’re not silly,’ interrupted Maya furiously. ‘Black lives matter! Climate change matters!’ He was like all the rest of the stupid politicians.

‘She does have a point, Simon.’

Maya threw her mum a grateful smile.

‘Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you, Neesha? Why is it you always have to take her side over mine?’

Sitting with her mum on the sofa, Maya knew he felt excluded and didn’t care. Simon wasn’t her real dad. Her parents split up when she was still a baby and her real dad moved to America and had another family. He didn’t keep in touch apart from birthday cards, though she followed her half-siblings on Facebook.