There are nights when I wake up, too agitated to sleep. Screens aggravate insomnia, so the first time it struck, I plucked a paperback from Sydney’s shelves. It opened at a page streaked with yellow highlighter. By my love and hope I conjure you, throw not away the hero in your soul. That kind of thing is why I’ve never been a reader. Chanel has a collection of riveting audiobooks – her all-time favourite is The 127 Top-Secret, Must-Have, Clinically Proven, Executive-Strength, WINNING!!!! Tips for Growing Your Unethics – so I took to listening to those instead.

After Mel finished her arts degree, she picked up the usual casual hours here and there – at a bar, in a shop, at an escort agency. We were alarmed about the last, but Mel explained that it was an upmarket, progressive agency that didn’t allow touching. Time passed. One day she called to tell us that she’d applied to a college in Chicago and been accepted into its architecture program. ‘Doing architecture in Chicago has always been on my vision board,’ she said.

Tuition fees, exchange rates and airfares were stampeding through my mind. ‘Why can’t you study architecture here?’ I asked.

‘Da-ad! You know how it goes. I’ll find way better work in Australia if I have an American degree. It’s really patriarchal of you to try to destroy my career before it’s even begun.’

As Chanel said afterwards, it was an escalated repeat of that time when Mel had wanted three new statement dresses: one for the Fortunatas Year 10 formal, one for the tennis club’s Christmas party and one for Hawaii, where we were to meet up with Chanel’s family for the holidays. Mel stipulated that Ivy was not to make any of the dresses – that would be ‘beyond tragic’.

‘Can’t you wear the same dress?’ asked Chanel. ‘There’ll be different people in those three places.’

Mel burst into tears. ‘Oh my god, I can’t believe it!’ she gasped between sobs. ‘Gaslighted by my own mother. Oh my god!’

‘I don’t get it, darling. What’s wrong?’

‘Do I have to get out the crayons to explain everything? What kind of moron hasn’t heard of Instagram? Do you want everyone in the whole world to see me forced to go everywhere in the same dress like a loser ruro?’

The Mel who always sways up first in my mind has a yellow gazania in her hair. She’s smiling and has one arm around a goat. There must be a ladder that stretches between that Mel and the one who can now be seen in a latex jumpsuit on YouTube, but the ladder is missing its rungs. Mel tells her viewers that she’s embraced sustainable fashion and explains that latex is vegan, eco-friendly and ethical. When Ivy saw the jumpsuit, she applauded Mel for taking pride in her body. She said, ‘What wouldn’t I have done with that freedom as a girl!’