I manage to convince Nonno to stay for a meal before leaving for the hotel, determined to make up for ruining his champagne moment and for swearing at Mum. I offer to cook. I am a flukey cook: sometimes it works and tastes amazing, other times not so much. I don’t know which it will be tonight.

‘This smells good,’ Mum tells me with a hint of surprise as she sits down. She doesn’t say my name. She holds that back when she’s cross with me and for some reason it hurts. But I don’t say anything, I don’t make a fuss. Tonight’s mission is simple: to show Nonno I can behave, cook a meal like a grown-up and not argue with anyone, not even Mum.

‘Buon appetito!’ Nonno adds as he tastes my chicken. I’ve gone for a roast, it feels safe.

Dad and I cooked most Sundays while Mum sang in church with the choir. We’d prep vegetables, parboil the potatoes, then roast them with parsnips, honey and oil. He always made his own stuffing which Mum used to say he could have sold in the shops. We haven’t had a roast in a very long time.

‘Is this Dad’s stuffing?’ Mum asks as she loads up a forkful. This is her version of a peace offering, or heading in that direction.

‘Yep, is it any good?’ I want her approval. She nods, her mouth full.

‘So are you going to tell us what you’re going to put in that extraordinary box, piccolina?’ Nonno asks before tasting a parsnip. ‘Is it a present for Callie?’ When he says her name my stomach twists.

‘Yeah, but I don’t know if there’s much point in making it now.’

Mum’s face tells me to drop the self-pity act quickly, so I do. I guess she’s on Callie’s side.

‘Some stuff from Guides, I think; posters we made for our gang in Year 8; friendship bands; a few snow globes; and some letters we sent each other when we tried to invent that language…’ I stop as the memory makes me cringe.

‘Oh, that dreadful gobbledegook you tried to talk to each other in, and you thought Dad and I couldn’t understand it!’ Mum groans, making Nonno smile. We all think about laughing, but before any of us have really committed to it, there’s a noise in the background. It sounds like the timer on the oven, but then I tune in properly and recognise it.

My phone is buzzing. A text. For a moment I hope it’s Callie but there’s no way she’d be texting me, not yet – I’ve got a lot more making up to do first. My phone’s next to the sink, directly behind Mum. She picks it up and reaches over to pass it to me but the screen lights up. I haven’t locked it. I’ve been obsessively checking it the whole time I was cooking, texting Callie, sending her funny photos and gifs to no response. Mum glances at the message, then she swipes it open. I sit there speechless for a second, before I find my voice.

‘Mum! Are you reading my texts? Give me my phone!’

‘Who’s Riley?’

Nonno looks from Mum to me and clears his throat. The food sits on our plates, the steam still rising. I want to pick up my plate and throw it at her. I’ve worked so hard on this meal. I wanted tonight to be about peace. I wanted to show Nonno that he could stay here, that he could cancel his hotel reservation, and now it’s all ruined because of my stupid phone, Mum’s nosiness and Riley.

‘Oh my God! Give me my phone, Mum! Please?’

She scrolls through more texts. I jump up; my chair topples over. She holds the phone away, out of reach, and looks at me. She’s furious, even more angry than when I swore at her the other night.

‘Who the hell is Riley?’

I hear Nonno sigh gently as he pushes his chair back. He leaves the room, but she doesn’t even notice. She won’t take her eyes off me.

I pick my chair up off the floor and talk myself out of throwing it across the room. I need to try and focus, to find out exactly what she’s read.

Then it sinks in – he must have texted me! Riley has texted me! I can’t keep the delight off my face.

‘Don’t you bloody laugh! How dare you? This is not a laughing matter, young lady. Sit down there right now and explain yourself!’ She points to the chair.

‘I’m not laughing at you, I promise. What do you want me to say?’ I ask. Who knows what Riley might have put in a text? The smile comes off pretty quick, the happy feeling in my stomach turns to water. I am desperate to get my hands on my phone and find out what he’s just texted.

She throws it at me but I can’t catch it in time. It lands with a smash on the floor, echoed by another crash from upstairs.

‘Mum!’ I shout as she stalks out of the room. I can hear her marching up the stairs, probably going to see what the crash was.

I pick up my phone. There’s a crack across the screen but I can just about make out what she must have seen before she threw it on the floor. But it doesn’t matter because she’s screaming, calling out my name from upstairs.

‘Hope! Hope? Call an ambulance! Call an ambulance, now!’