I close the front door so gently it makes almost no sound. The lights are on in the back half of the house. I shuck off my coat, kick off my shoes and pad to the kitchen, where I spit my chewy in the bin and fill a glass of water.

It’s not until I turn towards my bedroom that I see Mum sitting very still at the dining table. I almost drop my glass.

‘Mum! What are you doing up?’

As long as I message her at a decent hour and promise to taxi home, she doesn’t wait up. There’s a bottle of wine and a glass on the table, and a stack of books. Mum is barefaced, her hair frizzy. Sometimes she looks so washed-out and saggy I have to promise myself I’ll never let things get that bad.

‘I couldn’t sleep, hon.’ She rubs her eyes. ‘I haven’t been sleeping in general.’

‘What are you looking at?’

She shows me.

An old photo album, open on somebody’s birthday party. Yin is right up in the camera, face painted, grinning with one tooth missing. A slap in the face.

‘I had no idea you kept these.’

It never occurred to me that Yin would be on Mum’s mind too. She sinks underneath me when I put my hand on her shoulder. I can see the weekend paper peeking out from underneath the photo albums, Yin’s photo on the front yet again.

I don’t want to step too close with my night-out grottiness, the debauchery behind my minty breath, the details of what I’d done with Marcel lurking in my eyes. It’s not often I wish I could be Mum and Dad’s little girl again, but perhaps tonight is one of those times.

The wine bottle is empty though, so I’m probably safe.

‘What did you used to say?’ I point at a photo of Yin and I with our heads together, my hair shockingly white-blonde, hers as black as it comes.

‘Double the cute, that’s what I used to say,’ says Mum. ‘You had the Polish hair. Mine was the same colour at that age.’

The remaining photos show us in a whirl of colour and activity as the party games heat up—musical chairs, giant’s treasure, pass-the-parcel. In the background is Mum, blurry, and Yin’s mum, right off to the side. Pages of half-forgotten dreams.

‘Were you friends with Chunjuan back then?’

I can’t remember our mums together, but they must have spent time in the same places, while Yin and I played. They must have talked on the phone and dropped us off at each other’s houses.