I am emotionally shattered. It’s the same seasick feeling I had after my mother left. When I was seven, she ran off with another man and took our five cats. She’d left a note for my father saying she no longer loved him. “It’s not your fault,” she wrote. “It’s Britt’s. I always hated her.” My father was heartbroken, although I just felt sad and hurt. I had long come to terms with being motherless — since I was a toddler she’d made it clear how little she cared and I learnt to make myself invisible.
I didn’t miss her, but I was crushed about losing the cats. The house suddenly felt as silent, colourless and empty as our flat does now. A few weeks