‘You don’t think it was me, do you?’ I’d asked.

‘It would be understandable if it was,’ she’d said in a quiet voice.

I took a deep breath and steadied myself to admit the one thing that I’d not been able to say out loud before.

‘It wasn’t me,’ I said. ‘But I wish it was. From the bottom of my heart, I wish it had been me.’

Stella turned to face me, her eyes brimming with unshed tears. ‘I’m glad it wasn’t,’ she said slowly, deliberately, ‘but I would’ve supported you if it was.’

I nodded, my face blazing again. I could not speak.

She sat down beside me and took my hand. ‘Can I ask something else?’

I nodded once more.

‘If he hurt you, do you think he could’ve hurt her, too?’

‘Who? Heidi?’

I thought of how she hated him. How she always seemed to hate him. How I always thought it was because he was intrinsically linked in her mind to the death of her mother. I might’ve given it a passing thought in the past, but to be honest I’d done my best not to think about Heidi at all over the last ten years. But I knew she had never left his side, even as she grew up. They had never become estranged. Not like me. She still visited him. She may not have loved him, or even liked him, but she felt a duty of care to him and she acted on that. Would she have done that if he had hurt her in the same way?

But then I think of how messed up I was. How confused I had been about what love meant, and care and family. I think of how many times I’d told her no one else wanted her. That she was alone. That she’d be better off dead. My face blazed at the memory. I had been such a vindictive bitch. Even when I was old enough to know better.

I had goaded her through her life, and even when I came back to see Joe at her behest, I had still been unable to resist goading her. Acting like a child. Breaking that stupid doll.

And all the time refusing to acknowledge that she could be hurt, too. That she might have endured some of what I had. Except he had left me, hadn’t he? He stayed with Heidi. From the moment her mother had died when she was nine and a half, he had been a constant. He must have thought he had died and gone to heaven, I think, and my stomach tightens and turns and guilt and fear wash over me.

We’d both been guilty. My father and I, of destroying her.

I could no longer look at the breakfast I’d been eating. I could no longer think beyond Stella’s words. Had I been so wrapped up in my own pain that I’d failed to see what was most likely going on under my nose? If I had spoken up all those years ago, could I have stopped him from hurting her?