When we’ve finished talking and hang up, I stand in front of the mirror and try to see what she sees. I’m not sure if I’ve ever properly looked before. At parts of me, yes. Twisting and turning as I try on new jeans maybe. But not a head-to-toe analysis.

I’m wearing loose jeans that sit high above my waist and a baggy t-shirt, the words “Choose Life” shouting from it. All of it hides my shape well. I pull the t-shirt tight across my chest, trying to understand how I feel about the shapes and undulations that are exposed. I see medium-sized boobs that splurge at the sides like fleshy doughnuts, nothing like Eloise’s pert, tiny bee stings. I see a curved belly beneath the waistband, like a mound. Nothing like El’s concave stomach and exposed ribs above a waist you could wrap both hands around and still have your fingers overlap. I pull the legs of the jeans tight and see substantial thighs, built more for lifting heavy things than modelling swimwear. Nothing like Eloise with her thigh gap so wide you could drive a small vehicle through it.

And yet Tracey says she sees something different.

I wish I could see it too.

Maybe my mother has a pool cover-all that I can wear next week. Something sheer that shows a suggestion of what’s underneath without giving it all away.

I creep into the main bedroom, feeling like an intruder in my parents’ private space. I rarely come up here and if I do, I’m focused on Mother’s amateur dramatics rather than what is around me. It feels strange being in their space without them. I can still smell her perfume in the air, like she was there seconds ago. The room is in disarray – shoes abandoned on the thick blue carpet; handbags discarded on the bed; make-up and jewellery scattered across my mother’s dressing table in the window. I sit at the dressing table now, looking at the diamond earrings and cheap necklaces jumbled together, marvelling at my mother’s lack of concern at the sheer materiality of what she owns. Much of the expensive stuff has been gifted to her by my father over the years. I assume the idea is that if he buys her sparkly things, she will stay happy and will keep her eyes closed to his transgressions. And I have no doubt there are some.

I open the dressing table drawers to rows and rows of intimate lingerie, things I can’t imagine my mother wearing, lace, silk, colour. I push the drawer closed again.