His face was replaced with that of a young woman who said she was Penelope’s best friend and, ‘I never liked Caleb. I warned her to be careful. He was always really… I dunno… strange.’

I stood. I could listen better with more wine.

I refilled my glass and, in the kitchen, checked my email. Marco had sent a message of care and concern including a lot of virtual hugs and photos of the rotating dining room floor his Roman team was uncovering. How connected everything is, I thought, topping up my glass again. How strange, given this, how little sense any of it makes.

Nero allegedly burned Rome to the ground to make space for his Domus Aurea palace. In the time that passed between Stephen leaving and Caleb’s first trouble, I sometimes imagined that when Caleb was grown, I’d rejoin Marco in Rome. The dome of the octagonal rotunda his team found was once covered with glass mosaics, my own area of expertise. I’d match Marco’s excitement about ancient mechanics with my own excitement about ancient art. I would put that mosaic together, piece by piece. Instead I was here, with this puzzle of Caleb’s day and its separate, painfully sharp pieces.

With my wine, I padded down the hall, and pushed his door open. The mess. At least I could fix that. Tomorrow I’d fill big green garbage bags with outgrown clothes, and toys he’d ignored for over a decade. His absence reminded me of times I’d missed him before. At least now I knew where he was.

His room was an art installation, A Boy’s Life, offering evidence of all the Calebs who’d lived here. The Caleb who eventually came home would be a different person again. One by one, I inspected his drawings like they were roadmaps into his deepest thoughts. But I was still lost.

In the morning, Genevieve came over, with her own ridiculous idea of proof that she was trying to help: she brought a gift of expensive Estée Lauder cosmetics. ‘Come out. You’re rotting away locked up in a classroom or this crumbling old house. People need to believe in you, too. So you need to look believable. Normal.’

She took me to a local cafe, reconstructed with minimalist colours, mismatched chairs, and signed digital prints of exaggerated fashion plates, a determined attempt to bring smashed avocado culture to Brunton. I’d believed Genevieve was a good lawyer. But really, she was all about show. Another fact I’d recently realised: I was a better mother than she had been. After my disastrous final year of school – it was Genevieve who called it disastrous; my teachers said I’d done rather well – when I’d decided to study art history, Genevieve spoke about it like I’d joined the circus. ‘If you do well in first year, you can probably arrange a transfer,’ she’d said.