‘You can’t make me be friends with these people!’ she howled. ‘You can’t make me like them. I don’t want to be here. I want to go home. LET ME GO HOME!’

She kicked him square in the shins and he let out a roar of pain, while she darted around him and made for the front door. Quick as a flash he went after her, blocking her escape.

‘Ciara, pet, there’s no need to react like this. Natalie and Heidi just want to spend more time with you.’

‘Heidi! What kind of a stupid name is Heidi? Does she live up in the mountains with her granda or something?’

I shrank into myself. I was all too aware of my literary namesake, but most people had told me how pretty my name was. How unusual. They didn’t mock me – not like Ciara was mocking me.

‘She’s a nice girl,’ I heard Joe soothe.

‘I’m a nice girl, too,’ Ciara yelled, ‘but you’ve left us, me and Mammy, for them. And they let you. Mammy says they’re homewreckers.’

‘That’s enough,’ I heard Joe say. It was probably the first time I’d heard real sternness in his voice. ‘I understand that you’re angry, Ciara, but there’s no excuse for such rudeness. Things aren’t as simple as your mother would have you believe. We’d fallen out of love with each other a long time ago.’

‘That’s crap!’ Ciara blustered. ‘Mammy still loves you. She told me. She cries all the time.’

I glanced at my mother, who was pale. She looked as if she might be sick. I felt as though I might be sick too. I didn’t like that Ciara was calling my mammy names. I didn’t like that my mammy was being painted as a bad person. She wasn’t a bad person. But Ciara looked so sad and scared, and angry.

‘Loving someone and being in love with someone are two different things,’ Joe said. ‘I’ll always love your mother, but I’m in love with Natalie now. And she needs me.’

‘We need you!’ Ciara wailed.

‘Not as much as Natalie does,’ Joe said and I felt my mother stiffen beside me.

‘Joe,’ she said, a warning edge to her voice. ‘Now’s not the time. She’s upset. She has a right to be upset.’ I saw her give a small, reassuring nod to Ciara, but her face was blazing as if she was embarrassed, or ashamed. As if she had done something wrong.

‘Sweetheart, they need to know. They need to know why I have to be here with you,’ Joe said. His voice was thick with emotion. ‘When you’re older, Ciara, you might understand more. I love Natalie, and she’s sick. Very sick. And I need to be – no, I want to be – here for her, and for Heidi, because we don’t know what time we have left.’

I heard my mother sob as Joe crossed the room and took her hand. I saw the shock and hate on Ciara’s face.