As ever, my aunt was right. Telling Mum was rough. But we got through it. To be honest, she probably handled it best of all of us.
Uncle was worried, which meant he started pacing, and the cottage wasn’t built to handle someone as big as him, and aunt was angry—though not at anyone present—and ended up breaking a plate in the general commotion, and I sat on the sofa, being incoherent and crying a lot.
And it was while all this was going on that Mum signed the divorce papers. Later, though, we sat on the bed under the eaves, wrapped in one of her quilts, and Mum held me like she hadn’t needed to since I was little.
We stayed up way too late, whispering to each other in the half-made-up language neither of us could remember inventing, and aunt just closed the door quietly behind us, an
