‘I like it here.’ I look up, wondering if this tree’s canopy filled the sky when it was still green and full.

‘Your mum loves this tree, too.’

‘Really? How come?’

‘Ancient history,’ he says, and I’m not sure if he’s referring to Mum’s history or the tree’s.

‘Well, I guess we are related then,’ I say, enjoying the fact that Mum and I share something other than freckles.

It’s been a slow process letting Mum back into my life. For ages I blamed her for the fire that burnt our house down and believed she deliberately lit it. But she didn’t. It was an accident. She’d been asleep when her candle lit the curtains, and after the fire had woken her, she’d run away. Maybe we share that trait, too. Running when things get a bit much. Mum went to hospital for a while last year, to be treated for depression, but it’s been weird since she came out. At the moment she lives with her sister Annie, on a small farm about an hour’s drive away on the freeway. I like visiting her there. She’s always busy with the animals, milking cows and riding horses.

‘Actually, I need to talk to you, Clem,’ Dad says quietly, and I know something’s coming.

‘Yeah?’

‘It’s your mum,’ he says, turning to look at me, his eyes serious. I try to breathe. He reaches out awkwardly to grab my right hand, but I’m still holding the icypole wrapper so he settles for my left.

‘She’s coming to live with us.’ His voice is light, like he’s telling me I can have a pony for Christmas and thinks I should leap into the air and celebrate. But then I realise he’s gripping my hand so tight that his wedding ring is pushing into my skin. His voice is the only light thing about him.

‘In the flat?’

‘Yeah. It’s going to be great, Clem. We’ll be together again.’

Usually my dad’s positivity is infectious, but right now it’s just irritating.

‘But I thought …’ I can’t even finish the sentence. I thought Mum wasn’t coming back until our new house was built. I never imagined she’d come home, now, to the tiny one-bedroom flat Dad and I have been living in for the past ten months. We weren’t supposed to be staying in it long. It was a rushed, temporary move, but now it looks as if we’ll be there a while longer. I don’t mind that. But Mum arriving changes everything.

‘You thought what?’

I watch an ant crawl up my Converse and come to a stop on my leg. It seems to be waiting for a sign to tell it where to go next.

‘Clem? You going to say anything?’