Ruthy and Caleb looked at me, but I didn’t look back, because the thing inside me that went a bit haywire when things were bad was rushing around my innards and I was feeling quite panicky.

We drove to the park in silence. It was quite a long way, so there was quite a lot of silence. Dad didn’t look in the rear-view mirror to check on us, which he usually did. Caleb curled up in a little ball and Ruthy hung on tight to Milly Molly Mandy and buried her head in the rag doll’s woollen hair. When we reached the park, we all got out of the car quietly, and just sort of stood around it for a minute. Usually we would have already run to the gate and be screaming for Dad to hurry up.

Inside the park, Dad walked to a shelter shed and put our lunch basket on a bench. He sat down and took out his newspaper and told us to go and have a good time. Caleb asked if he was going to come with us, but he said, ‘Not right now, off you go and play.’ This didn’t feel right, but after a few minutes we raced off to explore, and for a little while we forgot that Mum wasn’t with us and Dad didn’t look happy.

Normally we would have disappeared for hours but after a while we met up at a water fountain and decided we should go back to see Dad and to ask him to look at the kangaroos with us. When we ran back to the table, he was just sitting and looking at nothing. His paper was folded flat. Caleb pulled at his shirt and asked him to come to feed the animals with us, but he said he wasn’t really in the mood. He took some stale bread out of the picnic basket and told us to go and feed things with it.

We went to a little lake and threw the bread to some birds that were hanging around. They seemed to enjoy it enormously, and I thought it was good that someone was having a good day. Caleb plonked himself down on the ground by the water and started to cry. Ruthy sat next to him and put her arm around his shoulders and I noticed she didn’t tell him there was nothing to worry about, because we all knew there was, even though we didn’t understand what it was exactly.

‘Dorcas, you think it’s just that Mum is having a head day?’ asked Ruthy.

I shook my head no.

‘Well, what do you think it is then?’ she asked.

Part of me wanted to tell her what Mrs Edwards had told me about Mum leaving, but my mouth couldn’t make those words come out of it because they were too scary and sad. We sat there together for quite a long time, not saying anything, Caleb whimpering quietly. I wanted to cry a bit, but my throat was all tight and sort of strangled.