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“Yeah, I guess. Holidays in Hollywood might be fun. I’m not saying I’m going to be sending cards on Father’s Day or anything, but I guess I should know who you are, and who your family is. My family, I guess. I mean, I already know my family from Delilah’s side, even if it’s just a bit disjointed to what I thought. A bit different that I’m not biologically connected to my mum’s family.”

She sounds a little uncertain about everything. It must be difficult to work out how the land lies after you suffer an earthquake to the facts of your foundations.

“You have a grandmother and grandfather. My parents are both still alive. I was an only child, so there are no aunts and uncles or cousins for you to get to know on my side. Though my mother has seven siblings and my father has six, so there’s a whole variety of great-aunts and great-uncles, plus what feels like a hundred second cousins, if you wanted to get to know them.”

“Why did your parents only have one child if there are so many aunts, uncles, and cousins? Sounds like everybody else went for the big family,” Maddie comments.

“My mother couldn’t have any more children after she had me. There were complications in the delivery,” I explain. My parents would probably have wanted to be the same as their siblings and produce at least four children, but they always said it wasn’t their destiny.

“Do they know about me?”

“No.” I stare at her, gauging her reaction. “I didn’t know until you were eleven, and then when I did find out about you, I didn’t know how to tell them. It’s a big thing, Maddie. However it’s rocked your world, it did the same to mine. My parents would have wanted to be in touch, to know who you were, and to be involved in your life. That wasn’t something I could easily arrange with the way I left things with Delilah. I’m going to see them this week, and I’ll tell them they have a granddaughter. Unless, of course, you don’t want me to tell them yet. I wouldn’t want to put you in a position you don’t want to be in.”

She looks like she’s mulling everything over. I wait for her to think everything through, wondering if she weighs up the pros and cons like I do. She frowns as she’s thinking, and I’m struck again by how much she looks like Delilah’s replica, even with the features I can recognise as my own. Does she see the similarities between us as well? Does she look in the mirror now she knows the truth and wonder why she never saw it before?

“You can tell them. I think you’ve had to keep things quiet or been kept in the dark for long enough yourself. Maybe it’s time everybody started to be honest about things.”

“What else do you want to know?” I ask.

“What was Delilah like when you met her? She doesn’t like to talk about before she lived with my mum and dad,” Maddie states.

“She looked a lot like you do now, except she was always trying to hide. She dyed her hair the darkest shade I’ve ever seen in real life. She would wear lots of make-up and would never make eye contact. She would sit quietly in the school and do her work, and she liked to sketch. She was always super talented. When she got excited in class about a topic, she would talk with her hands. She was such a determined and independent thing, even if it meant doing things she shouldn’t to avoid having to admit how things were in her life.”

I don’t know if Delilah’s ever told Maddie the extent of the home life she grew up in. It isn’t my place to talk about it, but it forms such a combined part of our past. How different would things have been if she didn’t have such a shitty childhood? Would she have been just another face in the crowd, one who had a gang of friends and a smile for the whole world to see? I’ve always thought something would have happened, an acknowledgement of the magnetic pull that existed between us, but I know if her childhood was different, we would have been different. Our pace would have been slower. There would still have been the same level of heat and passion, but maybe there wouldn’t have been so much heartbreak.

“My mum says that Delilah’s mum died last year. My grandma, I guess. Apparently, she had an aneurysm. Delilah didn’t cry when she found out, not that I saw, anyway. She cried a lot after Dad died, so I guess Suzanne was not very nice when Delilah was little,” she muses.

I can’t deny that there’s a little satisfaction that the woman who created such a terrible environment for Delilah, who knowingly let her boyfriend torment her daughter, isn’t around. I remember Delilah saying she hadn’t spoken to her mother since the day she left her home, but knowing she isn’t going to ever wheedle her way back into Delilah’s or Maddie’s life is a relief.

“Why don’t you tell me more about you,” I suggest.

“What do you want to know?”

“Everything?” Both of us laugh at my response. “I missed everything, Madeline. I don’t even know your middle name. Your date of birth. What your first word was. What’s your favourite animal? What book do you love? What’s your favourite food? Is there anything you’re scared of?”

“Grace. July 28. Dada. Sea turtles. Anything by Jane Austen. Banoffee pie. Dying.” She reels off her answers without blinking or hesitating. I know I should address the last one, but I feel underqualified. “Same questions to you,” she says before I have the chance to make myself look like an idiot.

“Harry. October 17. Mama, I think. Penguins. The Lord of the Rings. Banoffee pie. That I will make an absolute mess of this.”

“This is kind of fun. Go again?” she suggests.

“Okay. If you could have a superpower, what would it be? What do you dream of being when you grow up? Least favourite food? Best day of the week? What country do you want to visit?”

“Reading minds would be pretty cool. A doctor, I think. Peas are gross. Friday. America.”

“Yeah, reading minds would be cool, but I think being able to fly would be awesome. I’d like to get back to performing on the stage. I don’t like sprouts. Sunday. Ireland.”

“Wait, you’ve been all over the world, and you haven’t been to Ireland?” she scoffs. “It’s like right across the water.”

“Never been.” I smile at her.

“Maybe when I’m properly better, we could take a holiday there. I don’t think Delilah has been either.”

I frown again. “I don’t know what you’re expecting, but there are a lot of issues between me and Delilah. I don’t know how your relationship is with her, but—”

“I still love Delilah,” she cuts in. “I mean, yeah, it’s weird. My mum is still my mum, you know, and my dad was still my dad. I was really angry with everybody at the start, because everybody lied to me for so long. But, talking to Mum and Felix, I understand why Delilah chose to do what she did, and I understand why Mum did what she did too. I’m still mad at them, obviously, but I think it’s possible to love somebody and still be mad with them at the same time.”

“You seem much wiser than your age,” I tell her after a moment of silence. “Your mum said you would only speak to Caleb for a while after you found out the truth.”