As usual, Melanie looks momentarily surprised to discover me on the doorstep after school.
‘Has it really been a month since your last visit?’ she asks, wiping her hands on her frilly pink apron and stepping aside to let me in.
‘So it would seem,’ I say, squeezing past her into the immaculate hallway, automatically taking off my shoes.
‘Izzy! Ro’s here!’ Melanie trills up the stairs.
No answer.
Dad and Melanie love to keep up the charade that Izzy ‘worships’ me when the truth is that Izzy appeared entirely indifferent to my visits right from the beginning, regarding me with weary eyes even as a four-year-old.
‘I’ll just go dump my things and make a start on my homework,’ I say.
‘Good idea,’ Melanie replies, absent-mindedly patting me on the shoulder before drifting back into the kitchen.
I trudge up the stairs, past the numerous photographs of Dad, Melanie and Izzy. They go to a professional photographer every summer, posing against a white background wearing coordinating primary colours, hugging and giggling and looking every inch the textbook happy family.
On my way to the spare room, I glance in on Izzy. Her room is headache-inducing pink. The star attraction is her bed, with its heart-shaped headboard and ruffled canopy, dozens of tiny fairy lights sewn into the gauzy material. Izzy is currently lying on it, her head propped up on a pile of fluffy cushions as she taps away on her iPad. If she senses my presence, she doesn’t feel the need to register it.
Dinner is beef tacos. As we eat, Dad grills Izzy about her day at school in forensic detail, expressing delight and fascination at every single mundane revelation.
‘How about you, Ro?’ he asks once he’s accounted for what feels like every second of Izzy’s day. ‘Good few weeks?’
‘Not really,’ I say.
Ordinarily, I give Dad the bland answers he wants but today I’m not in the mood to play along.
‘Why’s that, Rosebud?’ he says, reaching for a handful of cheese to sprinkle on top of his fourth taco.
‘Oh, where shall I start?’ I say. ‘The scabies? The fact I just had to extend our overdraft again? The twenty-four bottles of soy sauce under the kitchen table?’
He and Melanie exchange panicked looks. Izzy sits up straight, for once actually interested in something I have to say.
‘What are scabies?’ she asks.
‘Mites that bury under your skin,’ I reply.
‘Ew!’ she squeals.
‘Rosie, that’s enough,’ Dad says.
‘Oh, don’t worry, they’re only contagious if we hug for like twenty minutes or something and I’m pretty sure there’s no chance of that.’
‘Rosie! I said that’s enough. We’re eating here.’
‘Don’t ask me questions if you don’t want to hear the answers.’
‘We can talk about it later,’ Dad says. ‘You and me.’
Yeah, right. He has a new life now – clean and ordered and photogenic – and he’d rather chuck himself in a moving river than willingly confront the mess he left behind.
‘More guacamole, anyone?’ Melanie says, her voice artificially bright.
‘Yes please, darling,’ Dad booms back. He spoons a dollop on the side of his plate before turning back to Izzy. ‘Now, sweet pea,’ he says. ‘Tell me more about your maths test. How many people did you beat again?’
‘The whole class,’ Izzy says as I crumble a shard of taco shell between my fingers. ‘So, twenty-seven.’
‘My clever daughter!’ Dad says, beaming.
He’s always referred to Izzy as his daughter – he did right from the beginning, trading in his frizzy-haired real-life daughter for an adorable blonde version. I like to tell myself it doesn’t hurt, and I’m so used to it now, most of the time it doesn’t. But then there are moments that catch me off guard, like this one, and it takes my breath away.