In two swift strides Quinn was at her side, ‘It’s OK, I’m not going to touch it.’ He was talking to her in a strange tone, as though he was talking to a child. Tara was shaking, she covered her head in her hands and let out a strange panicked burst of cries. Quinn turned back to Minnie.

‘I think you’d better go,’ he said.

‘Don’t let her touch it!’ cried Tara. ‘Don’t touch it!’

‘She’s not going to touch it, Mum,’ said Quinn as he led the hunched figure of his mother out of the room. ‘Come on, I’ll take you upstairs.’

Minnie was left alone in the living room, frozen to the spot. What just happened? She’d shouted at Quinn, broken a really expensive-looking lamp and then Tara had totally lost it. Should she stay and clear up the mess? Offer to pay for it? Not that she had any money anyway. Why had she taken her anger out on Quinn like that? They’d been having such a great afternoon and she’d ruined it. She picked up her bag from the floor and quietly let herself out of the enormous front door.

5 January 2020

Minnie paused at the grey, paint-chipped front door of her parents’ house. She hugged the mustard-yellow woollen cape she was wearing around herself. The cape had been an ill-advised purchase from a charity shop last year; something Leila had persuaded her was a ‘must-have’ fashion item. Minnie had quickly concluded the cape made her look like a walking banana, which is why she’d only worn it two times (and one of those was to a fruit-themed fancy-dress party.) Now, since she’d lost her only coat and it was two degrees outside, the cape had, by necessity, been resurrected from the depths of her wardrobe.

She could hear the hum of noise inside the house, the ticking audible even from the doorstep. She took a moment to savour the quiet of the street. Since her brother Will had moved to Australia with his girlfriend, Minnie had tried to come home most Sundays to have a meal with her parents. She knew they missed having Will around, he had a way of being with them that felt easy. She couldn’t fill the hole his absence had created in the family dynamic, but she felt she was doing her bit by showing up every week.

‘Minnie’s here,’ shouted her dad from above. Minnie looked up to see him leaning out of the bedroom window. ‘Just dealing with a blocked toilet up here; your Ma had too much quiche past its “best before” again.’