‘Will you say something nice at the memorial? You know her best.’

It’s Chunjuan asking, with her cold hands and lined face, haunting her too-big clothes and I nod yes, even though I’m not the one who knows Yin best anymore.

The house is too quiet. ‘Where are Al and Nelly?’

‘Science camp. Yin was supposed to be skiing with Milla’s family this week.’ Chunjuan says it in a matter-of-fact way, and it shouldn’t shock me, but the thought of Yin going away with someone else’s family for the holidays makes my head spin with jealousy.

We talk, or I talk, because Chunjuan wants to hear inconsequential stories about Mum and Dad and Liv and some of the other girls at school, the ones that went to Junior School with Yin and I, and the whole time the television is on, muted, in the background with a cooking show.

When I leave I promise to visit again and soon, I promise that I won’t be a stranger and that’s when Chunjuan latches onto me like I’m a lifebuoy and she cries like she did during the first press conferences, crying like a child who’s fallen over and grazed their knees.

I hate being hugged but I let her lean into me, and I remember Chloe’s calm presence yesterday, and how much it helped, so I press my hands into Chunjuan’s skinny spine and I try to be solid around her until she cries herself out.

After she draws herself together, she gives me a plastic bag full of tights and hair ties, saying she bought them for Yin and never got to give them to her.

‘Please be very careful, Natalia. Take care and watch and protect your family,’ she says.

I can’t tell her about the bag of Yin’s things, so I leave it sagging on the kitchen floor and hope it won’t shock her too much when she finds it later that night.

CHLOE

DAY 44

‘It’s bigger than I thought it would be.’

Mum pulls in slowly at the kerb and we get out of Ron and Pearl’s car. The sky is pink and birds are wheeling overhead.

Dad and Jarrod’s house sits on a big block of grassy land, shedding layers of paint and roof tiles like an animal sloughing off its old skin. They bought the house from an elderly Maltese couple and there are fruit trees everywhere and a passionfruit vine over the carport.

‘More of a dump, don’t you mean?’ I pull Mum’s suitcase behind me, the one she bought to go back to Singapore for her dad’s funeral. I hand Mum a roll of paper that’s almost as tall as her and try not to worry about making her drive me here.

The suitcase bucks wildly on the uneven front path.

When Dad answers the door I note that he has brushed his hair and ironed his shirt.

‘Come through, come through.’