The realisation that sweeps over me is one of relief. I always suspected there was more to his distance and disinterest than just not liking me. The fact is he never actually wanted me in the first place. Part of me takes the relief and holds onto it, taking comfort in the knowledge that he wouldn’t have liked any child and that it has not been personal after all. But another part of me latches onto the idea that this is not actually true. A son may have been different. Archaic as the idea seems, a son may not have been such a disappointment.

I almost want to laugh at how ridiculously Henry VIII it all is. I mechanically pack the letters away into their silver paper and retie the ribbons. I go to put the box back in the wardrobe where I found it, but change my mind and take it up to the attic. I feel strangely calm as I pull back the loose wooden panel in the far corner of the room and put the box in the space behind it. I pull out my diary and begin to process my new knowledge in the only way I know how, by letting words fall onto a page and form a discernible pattern of comprehension. As I write, I realise that my mother has been trying to make it up to him for seventeen years, but he has never forgiven her. He has kept her at arm’s length, treating her like a needy pet, appeasing her with sparkly toys when all she really wanted was his forgiveness and the adoration they shared when their story began.

The truth of it is he has never bothered to get to know me, to see if he could love me. He dismisses me outright, like an object he never asked for, never wanted. And she has come to see me as the personification of her biggest mistake. No wonder she rarely looks at me. Regret and resentment are the threads that tie me to her rather than any bonds of affection or love.

This house. I once looked at it with quirky affection, enjoying its twisted rooms and eccentric silhouette. I was secretly proud of living in a house that others feared, gawped at, whispered about. I liked the idea of not conforming without having to change myself in any way. It was as though the house awarded me enough peculiarity that meant I could conform with the likes of Eloise, Steph and Emily, safe in the knowledge that part of me was different after all.

Now I look around me and feel anger at this building, these walls, for taking away from me the family I could’ve had. The idea that one piece of paper can have such a long reach and influence the lives of people for so many generations is astounding.