There was always someone to play with. Come rain or shine we would be riding up and down the streets on our bikes, or on scooters or roller-skates. We would play ‘padsy’ or ‘tig’ and occasionally a gang of us would disappear en masse into one of our friends’ houses to watch a movie and eat crisps and biscuits.

I’d seen how friends with a houseful of siblings didn’t get the same treats that I did. Or the same attention from their parents, either. I was the apple of both of my parents’ eyes – but at heart I was always a daddy’s girl.

Right up until the day he left.

At thirteen years old, I experienced the worst, most painful, heartbreak of my life.

It didn’t make sense. I thought my daddy loved me. I was his special girl. I trusted him never to hurt me. But then he left – on a Thursday afternoon. I came back from school to find my mother perching on the edge of the sofa, a cigarette in her hand and a tautness to her posture that screamed that something was wrong. Being thirteen, my first thought was that I was in trouble. I braced myself for her to launch into some rant about my messy bedroom or the three pounds I’d nicked from her purse that morning. I expected her to use my full name and though my heart sank at the thought of the rollicking I was about to receive, I was already preparing my best eye-roll and ‘But, Mammy …’ response.

‘Sit down, pet,’ she said.

It was the ‘pet’ that threw me. She was hardly going to give out yards to me if she was using ‘pet’. I felt a knot in the pit of my stomach.

‘Look, there’s no easy way to tell you this, Ciara, so I’m going to come right out and say it. I want you to know that I love you very much. And your daddy loves you, too. You’re not to doubt that, ever. Okay?’

There was a strange buzzing sound in my ear. I could feel something build up inside of me, a burst of adrenaline that made me want to fight or run. I dug my fingernails as hard as I could into the palm of my hand to try to ground myself. I’d seen enough corny movies to guess where this was going.

‘Daddy has moved out,’ she said, the shake in her voice belying her true feelings. ‘It was a mutual decision and it’s just that we don’t make each other happy any more.’

‘Where has he gone?’ I asked. I needed to know where I could see him. When I could see him.

My mother’s face coloured. She sagged momentarily before straightening her back again. ‘He’s gone to live with a friend,’ she said.

Of course it wasn’t long before I found out that friend was another woman, and that woman had a daughter.

My father had left us to go and be with another family. A family he’d known for less than a year. A family with a daughter for him to love.