‘Get your stuff, Gabriella, you’re coming home with me.’

Mary Callahan looked at her elder daughter and wondered for the thousandth time how she had ever bred this excuse for a woman.

‘Get yourself away, Cynth, you’re not welcome here any more.’

‘I want my daughter, Mum.’

‘Well, you can’t have her. She doesn’t want to go with you.’

Cynthia looked at the woman who had borne her, and who she had loved and hated throughout her life, and she said snidely, ‘Well, we’ll have to see about that, won’t we?’

Shutting the door in her daughter’s face, Mary said sadly, ‘Yes, Cynthia, I suppose we will.’

She put her arm around her granddaughter then and, hugging her, she said kindly, ‘Come on, lovie, I’ll make us a hot chocolate.’

‘I ain’t got to go back there, Nana, have I?’

Mary sighed heavily, then said in all honesty, ‘I hope not, Gabby. I hope not.’

Jack Callahan was sitting drinking his beer; the telly was off, and the room was quieter than Gabby had ever experienced before. It was as if the events of the last few days had wiped out every bit of their energy and their happiness. Her auntie Celeste was back at home with her husband; he had, as always, talked her round. Jonny was sorry, there was no doubt about that, but her dad was dead because of him, and that wasn’t something that could be forgotten overnight. She would never forgive either of them. Her dad had been one of the few people who had ever really cared for her, and she wished now, more than anything, that she had told him just how much he had meant to her. Now her mother was determined to get her back home, and had not shown even the slightest remorse at her husband’s suicide, or acknowledged that she was the cause of it. As always it was about her mother, not anyone else. Her granddad and nana had aged before her eyes, and even James Junior was out of the picture. It felt as if her family had been dismembered, and she didn’t know how to cope with it all.

The only bright spot was Vincent; he had been fantastic. Her granddad said he could come to the house, and that was wonderful. Just being near him, and feeling his love for her, was enough to make her feel she might, just might, get through all this heartache one day.