‘I have to check on her.’ Hurrying up the stairs into Mina’s bedroom I find it is nothing serious, and I spend ten minutes soothing her, putting a cold flannel on her finger where she has pinched it in the hinge of a plastic box of bricks. When I step back into the kitchen, sweat pooling at the base of my spine in the mid-afternoon heat, my mother is on her feet, bag on her shoulder.

‘Do you want me to come with you, to show this thing to the girl, Miranda?’

‘No, it’s fine,’ I say, fingering the edge of my phone, aware of the photo of the items in my camera roll. I don’t want to touch the bones again, to have to carry them with me to show her. ‘You look as if you need to go. I’ll let you know what she says.’ I see her to the door and then sit alone at the kitchen table, the ash rolling around the back door the only sign she was ever here.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Rav eyes me cautiously when he comes home, tiptoeing around me as if I am a bomb about to go off. He bathes Mina and I hear the rumble of his voice overhead as he reads her a story. I find myself hoping he’ll eke it out, knowing that when he comes downstairs and we are alone he’ll want to talk over what happened this morning – why I forgot all about our daughter.

By the time he comes downstairs I have thought of the perfect avoidance technique, and my bag is already over my shoulder, his car keys in my hand.

‘What are you doing? Where are you going?’

‘Nappies,’ I say, with a bright smile. ‘We need more nappies. When I put the baby to bed, I realized we were down to the last pack.’

‘We’ve got enough to last us til the morning,’ Rav says, reaching for the strap of the bag. ‘Come and sit in the kitchen. I’ll make dinner.’

‘I’d rather go now.’ I pull away, brushing past him towards the front door, trying not to limp on my bad ankle as I wait to feel his hand on my arm to stop me, but he just follows me to the door.

‘Allie, it can wait. Please, we need to talk.’

‘Rav, I’ll be ten minutes – twenty tops.’ I look down at the keys in my hand. ‘Please, let me go. I just need a bit of fresh air. I won’t be long.’

‘OK,’ he sighs after a long moment. He steps away from the front door, a resigned look on his face. ‘I’ll start cooking. But when you get back, I really think we need to talk about what happened today with Mina. Please, Allie. I’m worried about you.’

‘OK, Rav. I said I’ll be back in ten minutes.’