Checking the phone Jason had eventually rushed off without is safe in my bag, I push the kitchen door open and freeze as, out of nowhere, stark memories of my childhood assail me: sheet rain lashing against the window, my mother oblivious to me as she gazes at the windswept trees in the park beyond it. I see them: ethereal, solemn-faced funeral guests, whispering in hushed tones, warily watching my mother as she goes into the lounge. Following behind, I watch her carefully from where I hover uncertainly in the doorway. I see the look in her eyes as she locates my father, who’s stoically circulating, despite his grief. My gaze travels between my parents, but I focus on my mother, trying to read the expression on her face, to find some comfort there. I see the confused incomprehension in her crystal-blue eyes, which fleetingly hardens to deep hatred. And I wonder, does she know? Has he told her that Sarah didn’t move when she fell, but lay on the path like a porcelain doll?

‘Karla!’ My mother says delightedly, yanking me back to the here and now, to the smell of home cooking, which is supposed to be comforting, but somehow isn’t today. ‘How are things, my lovely?’ She downs her baking tray, atop which sits her own-recipe cinnamon apple pie, reaches for the dish towel to dust off her hands and comes across to me.

‘The same,’ I say, with a wan smile. Mum knows that with Jason’s business problems on top of the demands of two children, things are not all rosy at home.

She looks at me kindly and then pulls me into our ritual hug. I hang on to her for a second, wishing I could truly go back, to a time before the dark days, and make all the bad things go away.

‘He’s not managed to get things sorted out then?’ she asks, scanning my eyes, her own peppered with concern as she eases away from me.

‘No,’ I admit, with a disconsolate shake of my head.

Mum nods, a small sympathetic nod, and turns to put the kettle on for a cure-all cup of tea. The way she is, always cooking and cleaning, you would imagine an older woman, a mumsy mum, living a life of dull domesticity. But Mum’s not dull or dowdy, always dressing trendily but understatedly and never without a wisp of make-up – just enough to accentuate her high cheekbones and fine features. I’m not sure who I take after, but it’s definitely not her, with her natural beauty and elegance. Why does my father cheat on her, I wonder, as I’ve often done over the years. How is it that she’s always seemed so indifferent to the fact that he does?

‘And he won’t consider talking to your father?’ Mum asks.