I wrote him a note that said:

Dear Dad,

If you take me to the Sunday night meeting with you, I promise not to speak or ask a question from the time we get into the car until the time we get home. I will sit very still in the meeting and listen to every word. I will not turn around to look at the teenagers. I won’t whisper about people’s hats. I won’t kick the chair in front of me. I won’t hang around Brother Davies in case he gives me a mint before the meeting starts.

I love you.

Your oldest daughter,

Dorcas

I showed it to Ruthy, but she said I should just wait to see what happened and surely everything would go back to normal soon. What she didn’t know, or course, was what Mrs Edwards had told me about Mum wanting to leave us, so I thought I’d just keep that to myself and take her advice. Ruthy was, after all, much better at keeping the peace than me.

Ruthy and I spent a good amount of our time in the tree house when we returned from school, because Mum was definitely tied up in a long string of head or cross days. It wasn’t really fair of me, but I blamed Caleb for a lot of the troubles we were having. It seemed to me very convenient that as soon as things were tricky for him, he could get sick and then get all the attention and the tiny bit of love that Mum seemed to have left in her. She pampered him and made him his favourite dinners to encourage him to eat. She slept in a chair in his room for the first part of every night, and I think would have stayed in there with him if there had been enough room. She read a story to him before she turned the light off but wouldn’t let Ruthy and I come in to listen. She would grab him and hug him at the strangest moments and get quite teary as she did it.

I asked Ruthy at one point if she thought Caleb was going to die, and was that the reason Mum kept hugging him, but Ruthy said she thought Mum had so little happiness in her at the moment she had to spend it on just one person because there wasn’t enough to go around. We talked about why she was especially unhappy, and Ruthy brought paper out to the tree house for us to make our lists. We agreed we should write what we thought was the honest truth.

Her list said: Mum is worried about Caleb’s asthma and all Dorcas talks about is having a guinea pig which Mum believes will make him sicker. Mum is upset Dad is working more hours for Mr Bednarski but isn’t making enough money to bring Grandma for a visit from Scotland.

My list said: Dad has to work more because it’s too sad to be home and this is making Mum even crosser. Mum misses Grandma, who I think might be an especially good kind of mother because Mum misses her so much, and if she was here, perhaps Mum would be less cross. Mum’s heart has shrivelled up into a little unripe olive. Caleb is sick and Mum thinks I make him that way by causing trouble and fights. Mum doesn’t want me to have a pet to love and pretends Caleb will be allergic so she doesn’t mind he gets sick because it makes her story better. Mum only loves me because God says she has to because I am her kid, but she’s not going to church much now and that means God can’t remind her to love me so it’s getting harder.