Caleb left quite a bit of string after the Mum and Dad beads before positioning ours though, and when Mum and Dad did a lot of fighting and Mum threatened to go back to her mother in Scotland, and Dad said he’d happily drive her to the plane because she’d driven him to the madhouse, Caleb pushed the Dad bead further away from the top to reflect the current state of affairs.

Caleb’s bead was next after Dad’s. He chose a blue one because it was his preferred colour, and it had been his idea to put the family on the string. Ruthy’s bead was fairly close behind his and, because she was next loved, she got the next choice and selected a bright red bead with little white dots on it. That would have been the one I’d have chosen, because I was mad for anything with polka dots on it. Dad called me Dotty Dorcas once. I quite liked that name and thought it was a friendly kind of message between Dad and me.

Caleb chose the green bead for Daniel because we agreed boys should choose for boys if one was away. Daniel’s was a fair way down the string from Ruthy’s because, although he was Mum’s beloved firstborn, something had happened to result in him going away to board, and we sensed it pushed him well past Ruthy for the time being. All that was left for me was an orange bead, which is the colour I liked the least in the whole world. Mum says I shouldn’t say I don’t like orange because God made all the colours of the rainbow, but I was pretty sure it was not His favourite colour either. I didn’t even like orange polka dots, and that’s saying something.

We argued for a while about how far away my bead should be from Daniel’s bead on the string. Finally we decided it wasn’t at the very end of the string but it was a fair way away from Daniel’s. Caleb patted my hand kindly and reminded me that just being on the string at all meant I was still beloved of God and Mum. We left quite a lot of string after my bead to allow for movement down on those days where I scratched my scabs and committed other offences, so that even then I would still have a place.

We hung the string up in the tree house, with Mum’s gold bead proud at the top end, and mine hanging a bit sadly right near the bottom. We agreed Caleb could be in charge of moving the beads, but only after we had all discussed any change together first.

We heard Mum yell again. It was even louder this time. After a moment’s frozen response to hearing her call, we scrambled out of the tree house and walked across the thick, springy green couch lawn to the back door, which was up six grey cement steps to a little platform. We speed-walked in a line side by side, even though Caleb was a very good runner and could have easily beaten us there, but when Mum was cross, running was one of the things that could really set her off. We did not allow ourselves to be distracted by the flapping clothes on the line, which I normally felt a big need to yank as I walked past them, or by the magpie that threatened to swoop from the top of Dad’s shed, or by the swarm of bees that rushed past us buzzing a spring song in unison.