‘OK.’ Rav comes and sits opposite me. ‘Allie, we need to talk, don’t we? You seem …’

‘I feel better. Much. I’m sorry about today, about the painting. I lost track of time. You know I wouldn’t have let Mina cry deliberately.’ I meet his eyes, almost daring him to look away first. He does. ‘I saw Avó and Naomi earlier.’ I tuck my hands under the table and give in to the urge to pick at the skin around my nails. The thought of Naomi, standing here in my kitchen earlier today when just a few hours before she had been meeting Rav behind my back, makes me jittery and anxious.

‘Oh?’ Rav tries to look surprised, but he doesn’t make a very good job of it. ‘It was good of Naomi to make the time to bring Avó. She must be really busy in the shop, it’s wedding season, isn’t it?’

‘I never said Naomi brought Avó over.’ Something stirs in my gut, putrid and poisonous. They have spoken since this afternoon, Rav and Naomi. They must have.

‘I just assumed … Mum didn’t call me to come and pick her up so I thought Naomi must have brought her over.’ His face is guileless and if I hadn’t seen the message thread, seen the suitcase in the attic, then I would have no idea that he was planning to take the children. ‘What happened to the mirror? I noticed it wasn’t in the hall when I came home.’

‘I took it out,’ I say. ‘It’s in the garden for you to take to the tip when you get a moment.’

‘I thought you loved that mirror?’ Rav frowns. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to try it in another room?’

I shake my head, my lips clamped together. I can’t tell him why I don’t want the mirror in the house. ‘I fancied a change.’

‘OK …’ Rav gives me a long look, while I rearrange my face to look as pleasantly normal as possible. ‘The mural looks really good by the way. Mina’s going to love it. What made you start the painting today – I thought you would have been exhausted after last night?’ As he finishes speaking his phone pings and he pulls it from his pocket, frowning down at the screen.

‘It was my mother’s idea,’ I say quietly as he stares at whatever message he has received. Is it from her?

‘What?’ Rav looks up from his phone and I can’t read the expression on his face.

‘She always wanted to paint a mural in my room, and I wouldn’t let her. It was her idea for me to paint one for Mina.’