Usually, when I’m feeling down, I listen to some music, do a bit of drawing or talk to Mallory. But tonight none of that’s working. I avoided Mum when I got in, just called hello upstairs and came into my room. The idea was to do some sketching and lose myself in that, but I’m too agitated; can’t settle. The owls I’m drawing are all lopsided and weird-looking, and honestly I’m a bit fed up with owls right now. Mallory’s having her ‘family evening’ so she’s unavailable. It’s probably lucky actually, all I’d do is moan and then feel bad about moaning.

‘Owl!’ Mum’s voice interrupts my thoughts. ‘Come, my love, I’ve made us a lovely daal.’

Daal is lentils.

I cannot tell you how much I loathe lentils.

Mum dresses them up in all sorts of guises: lentil lasagne, lentil stew, lentils in muffins (they’re a special kind of horror) and of course the daal, and it doesn’t matter how many times I tell her that I don’t like them, she just keeps on making things with them in her own special way. It’s as if she thinks one day I’ll turn around and say, ‘You know what, Mum, I was wrong all along. Aren’t these lentils luscious?’

I am never. Going. To say that.

I push my chair back from my desk and storm to the kitchen.

We have a small flat. My room, Mum’s room, sitting room, kitchen. Bathroom. The studio in the attic. Anyway, it doesn’t take me long to get to the kitchen. She’s dishing up the daal. It’s dark out now, and she’s lit tealights all along the kitchen worktops and on the table.

‘Why don’t we have family evenings and order pizza and ice cream and talk about how my day was at school?’

Mum turns to me. She’s wearing small gold hoop earrings and they glint as she moves.

‘Family evenings?’

‘Yes! Special ones, where you make an effort to find out what’s going on with me.’

‘But I already know what’s going on with you, Owl – every evening is a family evening!’

‘Family is all the parts, not just some of the parts.’

I’m too cross, it’s not coming out right. I take a deep breath, leaning against the wall as she puts the plates on the table. She’s made naan bread and raita to go with the lentils, and my stomach rumbles treacherously.

‘Family is this.’ She gestures around the room. ‘Family is wherever there is home, and food, and love . . . Come, now. Come and eat, and we’ll talk.’

‘But it’s not—’

‘Here,’ she says, reaching into the fridge. ‘I got your favourite.’

Mexicana spicy cheese. She smiles hopefully and my eyes sting.

‘I don’t want cheese.’

‘But you love it!’

‘I don’t want any of this. I want to know who my father is.’ I fold my arms, glare at her.

‘Owl!’

‘I need to know!’

She puts her back up against the kitchen counter.

‘I’ve told you the story. I used to read it to you, don’t you remember? I told you how I met him, how beautiful—’

‘His name, Mum! Tell me his actual real proper name!’

All the colour seems to drain from her face as she stares at me and realizes I’m not about to give in this time. My breath catches in my throat and suddenly I feel sick. I wish I hadn’t stormed in here, I should have let it go. I’m not going to like it, I can tell from the way she twists her hands; she’s scared.

‘Just do it,’ I whisper. How can it be that bad?

‘Jack,’ she says, looking me in the eye. ‘His name is Jack.’

‘Jack what?’

‘Jack Frost.’

Laughing.

Crying.

She’s rushing over to me.

I fight her off.

Can’t breathe.

Is my life such a joke to her?

Is she mad, does she really believe what she’s saying?

Her eyes are shining with the truth of it.

But how?

How can that be true?