MUM NORMALLY. Mum wanders around wearing furry slippers and Dad’s big jumper. Mum makes a nest for me in the corner of the sofa using a quilt, and wraps me up in it before going to get firewood from the woodshed. Then she gets me dressed for the day in front of the stove. First she opens the stove doors, warming the clothes near the flames and shaking the chill off them, before undressing and then dressing me as quickly as possible. Mum shovels snow, wearing a blue bobble hat, and clasps a mug of tea to get the cold out of her hands.

That’s what Mum’s like normally.

Dad says time-heals is a load of shit. According to Dad, the only people who say that don’t understand anything about anything. They’ve never been through anything. And my grey brain cells think Dad may be right because, at least so far, nothing’s healed, even though the summer holidays have already started.

And so I sit on the back seat and say ‘nothing’ and think about the healing power of time. To be on the safe side, I decide to remember Mum every day, before time has the chance to do too much healing.

The car’s windscreen wipers sweep across the glass, and our damp clothes make the window mist up. Dad drives into a puddle at full speed; he likes the way the water whooshes up the sides.

It’s raining.

It’s always raining, these days. At school the teacher says, ‘Hey, we’re not made of sugar.’ We put on waterproof trousers, raincoats and wellies and go outside. I think of sugar children, melting in the rain. Just sticky, sweet waterproofs left behind in the schoolyard.

Back in Sawdust House, Dad was always worrying that the roof would leak and he’d notice too late and by then, the attic would be rotting. Mum always said Dad was a drama queen, the way he made such a big deal out of things, ordinary things.

But these days, everything is a big deal. And Dad barely notices the rain. These days, Dad can saw branches in the rain and get soaking wet, and all Auntie says is: ‘Let him slog it out for a bit.’

These days, I get picked up from school every day by car. When we were still living in Sawdust House, Mum only came to get me if it was raining. After a working day, Mum would smell of cigarettes. She’d have pins in her shirt collar and paint on her fingers, and her hair would be twisted up in a work bun.