The days leading up to Christmas Eve had been tense in our household. I figured it was just grown-up business and let it drift into the back of my consciousness. My childhood thus far had been largely spent in the realms of imagination, and the grown-up business was largely inconsequential to to my own little private universe.

I kicked a ball around with my best friend, Ali, until the darkness set and the streets became quiet. I wandered inside to find the adults all congregated in the kitchen. The women had smudged eyeliner and puffy eyes. I recognised this scene, almost like a kind of de ja vu. I knew that they had been crying. Something was very wrong.

“Why don’t you go and open your present from me, love.” said my auntie Carol.

I immediately obliged, but my grandfather stopped me.

“Go and sit next to auntie Carol.”

She gave me a comforting but unconvincing smile.

I went and sat beside her. I began to feel terrified that someone was dying. There was a lengthy pause before my sister said that there was something she had to tell me and it would be a shock. The following moments remain blurry and scattered in my memory. I remember a lot of crying, before she said “I am your mum.”

I felt a gentle push from auntie Carol to go and give her a hug. Then I hugged all the women, and my grandfather patted me on the shoulder and said I was a brave lad. I thought I was reacting the way they wanted me to, I just wanted the crying to stop.

That night I lay in bed looking up at the glowing stars I had stuck on the ceiling. I felt relieved that no one was dying.