I flew home to tell my daughter off for wasting the money I’d been sending for five years. I found her at school eating half a bread roll — and then the counsellor told me she’d been registered as a low-income student since the year I left.

I rang home every Sunday. Sixty months. I did not miss one of those either and I used to be proud of that.

Every single time, I asked my mother how she was doing.

Then I got about four minutes with my daughter and I asked her about school, and she told me about school, and I said I love you and I rang off.

In five years I never asked that child one question where the answer could have been bad news.

Not one. I have gone back through it and I cannot find a single one.

And once — once — I saw it.

Video call, the January of 2023. She was in the kitchen and there was one bulb working behind her and there was a gap on the counter where the microwave used to be.

I noticed both. I remember noticing both.

I said something about the light and she said the bulb had gone, and I said get Grandma to sort it, and we talked about something else.