Dad shakes his head as if none of it was his idea, and to be fair, it probably wasn’t. “Your mum sent me up the loft to see if there were any more of your things up there. And guess what?”

He leans into the boot and lifts out an enormous, slightly battered-looking box. My heart sinks. As if there aren’t enough boxes in our house already.

“I told her you probably wouldn’t want all this junk,” he says, “but you know what she’s like.”

Mum clears her throat. “Who’s ‘she’? The cat’s mother?”

I kiss her cheeks. They’re soft and velvety beneath my lips and I can smell her face powder. It’s only been a few weeks since I left home and already Mum seems older somehow, smaller.

“It’s all your old schoolwork, love,” she says. Her eyes momentarily darken and my heart skips a beat. I try not to think about my schooldays if I can help it. The memories always unsettle me and, for the second time this morning, I have the feeling that something bad is coming. A looming, indiscriminate threat.

Now she’s back to her chatty self and I chide myself for being melodramatic. “It’s mainly project files, school reports, that sort of thing,” she says. “Your dad was all for throwing it away, but I said you’d be cross if we did that.”

As we step inside, Mum stops and gasps in delight. “Oh, Lizzie, the hallway is lovely.”

“Apparently, it’s called Mindful Gray.”

“Hark at you! Already a DIY expert,” Dad says. He’s finally managed to maneuver the box through the front door and lower it onto the floor. He straightens up and rubs the small of his back. At first glance he looks the same as ever—tall and rangy in his smart casual slacks and long-sleeved, brushed-cotton shirt. His usual uniform. But now I notice an air of fragility hovering just below the surface.

I’ve always thought it an advantage, having older parents. They seemed so much kinder and calmer than other people’s, so much more generous with their time. Mum was almost forty-four when she had me—they’d been trying for ages. But the awful truth is that I’ll lose them sooner.

“Right, then,” Dad says, clapping his hands together. The sharp noise brings me out of my gloomy reverie. “Give us a kiss, Pumpkin, and then we’ll have the grand tour.”