‘No,’ I say, ‘you shouldn’t. Not the way you did.’

‘I thought about it for hours when I was on the plane. Even if you had gone to Grandad’s, it wouldn’t have made what I did OK.’ A tear runs down her cheek, but I still can’t bring myself to comfort her. Elsa puts her arms round my legs and holds on to me. After a moment, Mum says, ‘Are you angry with me, Meg?’

‘I was,’ I manage to say.

She stares down at the ground and I have this weird feeling that she’s the child and I’m telling her off. ‘I guess I just told myself that Grandad would be looking after you …’

‘He tried to,’ I admit, ‘and we could have gone there, but I wanted to be at home so much.’ I laugh and shake my head. ‘I think I wanted to prove that I could do it on my own, teach you a lesson or something.’

She looks up at me. ‘But I thought you both loved being with Grandad?’

‘We do,’ I say. ‘But we want to be with you more.’

‘Really?’ I nod and she laughs. ‘Sometimes I don’t think you like me very much … Or need me. We’re so different.’

‘I know.’

We look at each other and even though we’re standing together, and Mum’s hand is on my arm, I’m still holding back from her. ‘I’ll change,’ she says. ‘I’ll stop the campaigning and the volunteering –’

‘Mum,’ I interrupt, ‘don’t change. Stay the same, just … stay here.’

Sometimes the smallest, simplest things are the hardest to do. I step closer to her and put my arms around her, then I rest my head against her, just like I did when I was little. The sun shines on us and I feel safe inside. Mum’s probably always going to drive me mad, and I’m never going to be the daughter she imagined having … But that’s OK. I only have to look at the stars shining in the night sky to know that beautiful things can come from chaos.

Honestly, it’s not a great hug – Elsa is stuck between us and the beads in Mum’s hair are squished into my face – but it’s definitely one small step for Meg and Mum.

Elsa’s muffled screams make us step apart. ‘I guess we should go and see Grandad,’ says Mum. She picks Elsa up and goes to put her in the pushchair, but Elsa wriggles and says, ‘Beb, Beb!’, reaching towards me.

‘I’ll carry her,’ I say, and I pick her up. Mum grabs her rucksack, then the three of us walk out of school.

FIFTY-FIVE

When we get round to Grandad’s, I leave Mum in the hall, sorting out the pushchair, and follow the noise coming from the front room.

A surreal sight meets my eyes.

Grandad’s lying on the sofa, a pile of pillows propping him up, Nina Simone is blaring out of the hi-fi, Jackson’s simultaneously dancing and fiddling around with the home brewery system, and Ed is bandaging Grandad’s foot.