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.’

He has the good sense not to give Mum the guided tour, but I notice her head swivelling, taking in every possible detail. I hope she’s not imagining the alternate future where she and Dad stay together and they can afford a falling-apart house to have all their arguments in.

We pass the spare room that Dad has set aside for when Sam and I stay over, which we never do, and which is where I assumed I would be working on my project.