I want to be honest that I said yes readily and that I was, at the time, rather pleased with myself for saying it.

My own mother had died when I was twenty-four and my father is in Duluth and we speak twice a year, and there was a part of me that liked the idea of Daisy growing up in a full house.

Brenda arrived eleven months later.

There was no discussion about Brenda.

She turned up with three suitcases in March 2023 after something ended in Chicago, and she took the second bedroom, and Daisy’s crib moved into ours.

That is when it changed, and I did not notice for about a year.