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I reach into the fruit bowl for a grape, roll it around my mouth. You once called me your little rebel, said I’d never be like them, not like any of the cardboard cut-outs who live in cities. But you manipulated me—that’s what they all said. What would you think of me now? Not much of a rebel, not enough for you.

Mum walks around the bench towards me, still carrying the wooden spoon, unaware it’s dripping sauce on her expensive slate floor. She’s smiling. She remains Ms Positive Thinking, even as your release date is burning holes in my handbag.

‘You know, I’ve actually been thinking lately that it’s time we went somewhere together,’ she says. ‘Maybe a nice beach holiday? You know, cocktails and girly chats, and…’

Shoes?I feel like adding.Fake smiles?

But I nod and listen like a good daughter. There’s power in this, knowing something that she doesn’t. I kind of like it.

‘We can even bring Dad along?’ she adds. ‘Of course, he’d stay in another room, another hotel even—’

‘Australia?’ I say, interrupting, and surprising myself.

I regret the word as soon as it’s out. Her mouth opens, then she goes as still as the lasagne dish. I want to wrap my fingers around the release date numbers in your letter, hold them tight in my palm, keep them only for me. If she sees them, I’ll lose this tiny shred of power. She’ll see inside my head and find you there. She’ll own you, too.

She holds my gaze.

‘No,’ she says quietly. ‘Not there.’

I reach for a dish cloth and wipe the sauce drops off the floor, avoiding eye contact. ‘It might be good for me to go back. A kind of purging. Cleaning out the system.’

I shrug. Why don’t I just take the letter from the handbag, show her and tell her I don’t know how I feel about it? Tell her I need help.

Because I’m a coward.

Because I hate her hold on me.

Because you’re the secret she doesn’t have. You’re my power.

‘No,’ she says again. When she drops the spoon, it bounces on the tiles and sprays globs of sauce onto the cupboard doors. ‘You’re going back to the psychiatrist.’

I glance at my handbag. It wouldn’t take much: just dip my hand in, take the letter out, unfold it and lay it on the bench. She would do the rest, take over and sort everything, like she always does. I stare out the window so I don’t look at her. I can’t.

It’s dark as midnight outside, though it’s not late. Perhaps there’s another stalker staring in at us as I stare out. Perhaps the letter is wrong and you’re already here, waiting for me to leave Mum’s, ready to follow.

Would you?

You said once that you could never let me go, that you’d find me anywhere.

Mum is frowning, chewing her lip, the way she looks at art she’s considering for her gallery, the expression she uses when she’s trying to work out if it’s a fake.

‘Dad said Sydney was nice.’

I hear the question mark in my voice. Even now, asking for approval. And why Sydney? I’ve never wanted to go there. Sydney is just another big city; the only difference is it’s closer to you. Sydney is where my parents went for a weekend when I was recovering in hospital in Perth.

‘It won’t help,’ she says. ‘Going back there.’

Maybe she thinks I’m regressing, choosing you over her again. You over the world. I guess that was always her biggest fear: that your hold on me would trump everything.

‘I thought you’d stopped thinking about all that,’ she adds. ‘What’s happened?’

‘Nothing.’

My heart’s beating so fast I think it’s going to explode. I can’t do this. I don’t want her to know. Not your release date, not anything we share.

‘You can’t go back,’ she says finally, firmly.

And she’s right, of course she is. I know it with the certainty that snow melts, spring comes. But she’s also wrong. And I want to shout at her until she knows it too. I want her to feel what it’s like in my head: wanting something awful and wrong and not knowing what to do about it. I want her to know what it’s like to be me.