Sunday at Chez Mian is bliss. With Zaman in custody, and DX Dingoes at war with the Bloo Bludz, our family is finally out of the heat. Following a large lunch, calorie-rich dessert and family bantz, us Mians go upstairs to indulge in one of our famous super-long siestas.

As I’m rolling about in my bed, trying to find that perfect spot that will trigger sleep, an overwhelming sense of foreboding suddenly attacks. It grips my throat like an invisible assassin, squeezing a gasp out of me.

I shoot up ramrod straight, listening to the ambient sounds of the house. Difficult when your blood is thunder, and your ears are acting like amplifiers. Closing my eyes, I try to hone in on the cause of the psychic disturbance. A false alarm. As I’m settling back down, I suddenly catch the tiniest sob.

It’s enough to rouse me from my bed.

I leap up, slip on my sliders and scramble into the corridor. Everyone’s bedroom door is closed. Dad’s peaceful snores punctuate the hollow silence, but my Spidey sense is pinging.

Curling my hands round the cold banisters, I peer down into the entrance hall. Another sob; this one as clear as breaking glass. I scurry down the stairs and push open the sitting-room door. Amma is curled up in the armchair, covering her face. Her shoulders quake with silent sobs, the telephone receiver lying at her feet.

‘Amma, what’s wrong?’ I ask, kneeling beside her, squeezing her shoulder.

Amma looks up. Her puffy wet face scares me because Amma is the most together person I know. She clings to me, crying into my bony chest, our roles reversed.

‘Don’t cry, Amma. We’ll sort it, whatever it is,’ I say, grabbing the discarded phone and whacking it back on the cradle.

‘This isn’t the type of thing that can be sorted, beyta,’ she finally says, drawing away and blowing her nose like a bugle horn. ‘Your auntie Ambreen is losing her mind.’

I am shook. Mum’s sister is only five years older than her. ‘W-w-what?’

‘She’s very sick.’

‘Well, can’t she come back here and get treatment?’

Twenty-five years ago, my auntie Ambreen baffled my grandparents by wanting to up sticks and move to Pakistan. She eventually got her way, got hitched to my rich uncle Sohail and began enjoying the Swag Life. Pakistan isn’t the place people think it is. If you have money, like my uncle Sohail does, life can be pretty sweet.

Amma is staring into the middle distance, no longer in the sitting room with me, but four thousand miles away in Lahore, holding her sister’s hand. I suddenly feel very lonely.

‘She has early-onset dementia,’ Amma says, almost to herself. ‘It’s very rare in people under sixty-five. None of us knew what it was. She’d always got bad grades at school, and she was so forgetful. Called herself a “Beverly Hills Bimbo”. Made us laugh. Oh how she made us laugh! We never thought for a moment it could be a disease. Her poor kids!’ Amma starts to cry again.

Feeling beyond inadequate, I stare at my feet. A series of flashbacks fills my mind. All the times Auntie Ambreen came to visit, and how excited me and Shais and Amir would get knowing she never came empty-handed. Dad complaining cos the sweets she’d bring weren’t Desi. Auntie telling Dad Asian sweets are ‘diabetes in a box’. I consider reminding Amma about this, but worry it might make her even sadder.

‘Amma, can’t she pull through? Like, if we pray really hard?’

Amma frowns, rallying to answer my question. ‘There’s no coming back from this, beyta. She’s deteriorating quickly. Soon she won’t be able to remember any of us.’ She says a prayer in Arabic. It’s the one you say when disaster strikes, and you tell Allah you trust Him even though your heart is breaking.

‘I’ll go mosque, yeah, and pray for her. I’ll stick a twenty in the collection box,’ I babble, wanting so desperately to make it better. I can’t see Amma like this. She’s too nice to have to suffer any more disasters.

Amma pats my head sadly, clearly appreciating the thought. ‘Will you be OK without me for a while?’

My heart implodes. The thought of Amma gone is unbearable. But how can I be selfish at a time like this?

‘Yeah, course,’ I say, like it’s no big deal. ‘Take all the time you need. I could come with?’

She shakes her head promptly. ‘Absolutely not. You’ve got your GCSEs round the corner. Osman might want you to take over the store, but I know you’ve got your heart set on university. Without idiots like Imran getting in your way, I know you’ll flourish and make us proud.’

Now my own eyes are filling with tears.

‘I’ll tell everyone how much you wanted to be there.’ Amma wipes her eyes, the armchair creaking as she gets up. ‘Suppose I’d better talk to your father …’ Her eyes cut back to me, whirlpools of worry. Placing her hands on the sides of my head, she tilts my face up. ‘Promise me …’

‘Anything,’ I say.

‘Promise me you’ll try to get on with your dad and Shaista. We don’t get to choose our family, but trust me, blood is thicker than water.’