When the publisher approached us before the ten-year anniversary we wanted to tell Mum face to face. Carly, Marie and I had sat on the threadbare sofa, the bars of the electric fire glowing bright, the coffee table devoid of tea and biscuits. She never made us feel welcome.

‘We’re going to write a book. Our story.’

‘Absolutely not,’ Mum had said.

‘They want our version, now that we’re adults,’ Marie was twitchy, picking at the skin around her fingers. We hadn’t realized then that she was drinking or how bad it was, anyway.

‘And what will you say?’ Mum stared at Marie until she looked away.

‘We won’t say anything bad about you,’ Carly said.

‘But that’s what they’ll want to know. Christ, there’s enough already out there about how you were neglected, left to fend for yourself, how you had the worst mother in the world.’

‘Nobody thinks that,’ I said.

‘Don’t they?’ She studied Marie again.

‘Look,’ Marie said. ‘Maybe most of the facts are out there but we’ve never talked about… the details, I suppose. The food we were given. How frightened we were.’

‘I thought Marie was going to die,’ I said.

Mum stood up. ‘It seems you’ve made your mind up so if you don’t mind, I’ve got things to do.’ She gestured to the door.

Marie filed out first, followed by Carly. I hesitated, Mum’s eyes were full of tears. ‘This isn’t a betrayal of you, Mum,’ I said quietly. ‘It’s about us and what we went through.’

She gave a single nod of her head. ‘You know if I could change the past – if I could go back to that day and be there, looking after you all – I would.’

‘We don’t blame you,’ I said.

She didn’t answer.

Although Carly and I weren’t keen on talking to the ghost writer, we’d already signed the deal and received the advance. We tried to keep our parents out of the book as much as we could but naturally there was much curiosity surrounding our family dynamics.

Around six months after the book came out Marie received a short note from our father after years of no contact, saying he thought the book was fair and thanking us for portraying Mum in a good light – it’s brought me much sadness that the stress drove us to divorce, he said and that stung. He didn’t even ask how we were. We didn’t reply. As far as I know, Mum has never read the book. When we received our first royalties I slipped a wad of notes in a blank brown envelope through her letterbox and I think my sisters likely did the same. Blood money, I suppose. Mum had always struggled financially and no matter what had happened in the past we still had a desire to help her. She never acknowledged the money.

It’s an odd relationship, mother and daughter. Although we rarely see her and she never makes an effort with us, I know that Marie still visits her sometimes and Carly rings her on her birthday and at Christmas. She’s never met Archie, or expressed any desire to, and that makes me incredibly sad. Despite the life I have forged for myself, the family of my own, there is some deep-rooted need for her love. For her approval. But she is the one who distanced herself from us. She made her choice as I have made mine.