He feels called-out by this, I can tell, and shuffles a bit, breaks my gaze. ‘Mom says I trust p-p-people too much, funnily enough.’

‘Well, she might be right. But trusting me isn’t the same thing as trusting people. I don’t think you ever said – where are you guys moving to?’

‘Uh, M-Michigan.’

‘Any reason?’

‘She met a guy there. Online. So. I think we’re gonna stay with him for a little b-bit while she finds her feet. I don’t know. If she’s happy, I’m happy.’

‘Oh.’

‘We probably can’t get our own pl-place because it’s gonna be hard to sell the Willowwood, I guess. Sandown isn’t as b-b-busy as it used to be; it sort of looks like no one even wants it.’

‘So what, then? What if she can’t sell it?’

He shakes his head. ‘I don’t know. Probably just leave it there.’

‘That’s sad,’ I say, quite upset actually at the thought of the Willowwood abandoned, the door boarded, the tastefully overgrown flowerbeds and bushes whirling up the sides of the black shutters. ‘I mean, not that she’s done something wrong. But that it’s got to that point.’

‘Yeah. But it’s not – I’m not even sure she wants to leave because of my nana. I think she cares too much about what everyone else thinks of us.’

‘You don’t?’

He shrugs. ‘I guess not. I mean, what really b-b-bothers me is when people think I can’t talk because I don’t have the words. I always know exactly what I want to say. I’m not unsure. It’s so frustrating, to know what you’re like in your h-head but not be able to be that in front of people. I guess I just want people to like me.’

‘I like you.’

‘Hey, you just said you’re not p-people,’ he says, snickering. ‘Well, I like you too.’

And my insides scream. Guilt. Absolute unadulterated guilt. He can’t like me, because he knows nothing. He doesn’t know enough about my foundations as a person to be able to make an informed decision about whether or not he likes me.

‘Thank you for all this,’ Ellis says. ‘For helping me look for her. I feel like it’s what my nana would have wanted, in a way. Everyone’s felt so much pain. And I just don’t think Roxy would have killed herself. I don’t – I don’t think she would have left Mom like that. I don’t like people thinking that’s what she did.’

‘I mean, I think that stuff is more complicated than that, Ellis. Not just a matter of leaving or not leaving. I don’t know tons about it myself, though.’