It was no wonder that she was a bit suspicious of me. Initially, out of respect for Caitlin, Nico and I had kept it all low-key. Plus I’d been waiting for him to say, ‘Thanks for helping me through the whole dead wife thing, but I’m off to find someone a bit classier/cleverer/thinner,’ so I hadn’t really bothered with the daughter-in-law dance. I’d hardly spent any time in Anna’s company before Nico had presented her with the fait accompli: he was marrying Caitlin’s carer’s daughter. But there was no going back. I’d show her I could be an amazing wife even without the fancy clothes.

I’d love to know what she thought of Lara, her other daughter-in-law. I hadn’t seen much of her yet but she hadn’t bowled me over with her warmth and welcome. She always looked so serious, with her precise blonde hairdo and blouses with fussy little bows. I didn’t have much confidence she’d be an ally against Anna.

And I was really going to need one.

Instead of winning her over with some old shit about the lovely activities we had planned ‘as a family’ and spinning her some yarn about the progress I was making with Francesca, panic made me trot out the one topic Nico and I had agreed he would handle when the time was right. It was the big no-no, the subject that must be rehearsed and approached with the same amount of tact as discussing cardboard coffins with an elderly parent.

As I made a rebellious mug of soupy tea complete with teabag bobbing about – I burst out with, ‘Nico and I were talking the other night about moving to another house. We thought it might be good to have a fresh start for us all.’ I plunged on into the silence with an increasingly desperate monologue about how it might be healthy for us to choose somewhere Francesca didn’t associate so strongly with her mother. Still in Brighton, of course, still near the sea, still close to Francesca’s school…

With every word I spoke, Anna seemed to become more sucked in until it was like being in the worst job interview ever, when you realise that you’ve actually said the opposite to what they were looking for but don’t have the sense to stop and say, ‘I might have got off on the wrong foot here.’

As Anna’s fine-boned features melted from an expression of surprise to one of outrage, I stammered to a halt. She propped her elbow onto the table and lowered her chin onto her hand in theatrical slow motion.

‘Nico cannot move somewhere else. The Farinellis have lived here for nearly fifty years. My husband bought our sons the houses – one each – so Nico and Massimo could live next to each other, opposite us, for the rest of their lives. Nico will not be moving. This is his home. There have been Farinellis in Siena Avenue since 1970, when we moved to England. We chose it because we are from Siena and the name felt like a good omen.’

Before I could respond, she leapt to her feet. ‘This is the problem when people do not treat family as important.’

I tried to backtrack. ‘Anna, sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you. Of course, it’s a lovely house and road, but I was just thinking about Francesca and how it might be easier for her to accept me if we moved somewhere that was new for all of us. That perhaps didn’t contain so many memories of Caitlin. I didn’t mean we’d do it tomorrow, or even next year.’

‘If you were thinking about Francesca at all, you would never have forced Nico to marry you.’

The last sentence was ejected with a rush of rolled ‘r’s, as though she had a toffee stuck behind her front teeth. The unexpected animosity made tears spring to my eyes. I’d known of course that Anna wasn’t exactly rushing to welcome me. I’d accepted it might take time and that perhaps I didn’t look the part – a little dumpy, my hair on the unruly side of messy and, however hard I tried, a natural predilection towards tie-dye, tassels and ruffles. But I hadn’t expected her to hate me. I felt the breath return to my lungs. ‘I didn’t force him to marry me.’

Anna emitted a fabulous snort. ‘Of course you did. Maybe not with a gun to his head, but Nico was always easily influenced. Far too soft. His brother has far more sense. Got rid of that silly first wife who didn’t want children and found someone who understood what it takes to be a Farinelli.’

Any vain hope that Lara might be an ally seemed as misguided as my brilliant idea of selling up and finding somewhere new for our funny little mismatched family. There I had it: the whole deck of cards spread on the table curling at the edges under the brutal spotlight of the truth. Anna didn’t approve of me. Thought Nico was weak and I had forced him into marriage, charging in as soon as Caitlin had deigned to die. Never had I missed a shared sofa bed and my mum singing into a sauce bottle more.

4

LARA

After nearly a month of searching for our cat, I still couldn’t accept that she might have simply found another home with a more plentiful supply of mackerel, or worse, that she was dead in a hedge somewhere. I tried to be brave for Sandro, but I’d had to put Misty’s bowls in the cupboard to stop myself bursting into tears every time I walked past them.

I’d inherited Misty when my dad had gone into a nursing home three years earlier. Every time I looked at her, I saw Dad as he was when I lived at home, his fingers stroking her back while he watched Question Time or listened to The Archers. Not the confused man who struggled with buttons and whose face paused in concentration before breaking into a smile when I walked into the residents’ lounge.

Since she’d come to live with us, Misty had resolutely ignored Massimo’s efforts to lure her in with little treats of tuna, fondling her ears, shaking stuffed mice on sticks. On the other hand, she snuggled up to Sandro as though his lap had been tailor-made for her grey bottom. Initially, Massimo joked about it. ‘That cat doesn’t know when it’s well off. Ungrateful moggy. Who does she think keeps her in chicken liver? Good job my wife appreciates me.’

I’d laugh and tease him that Misty was the only woman who didn’t think he was wonderful. He’d throw down the gauntlet, promising she’d love him more than me once he’d subjected her to his irresistible charms.

Every few months or so, he’d take up the challenge, unable to believe that there was a single living thing impervious to the force of nature that was Massimo Farinelli. But Misty greeted every bout of mackerel-waving, wool-whirling, ‘puss, puss, puss’ enticements with disdainful stares, before stalking off to hop onto Sandro’s knee.

Sandro even tried to encourage Misty over to Massimo, tempting her with little bits of chicken. She’d perch on Massimo’s knee for about five seconds while she gobbled down her treat and then, with a dismissive flick of her tail, she’d be off, leaving Massimo half-laughing, half-cursing, with Sandro secretly pleased there was one thing he could do better than his father.

Now, four weeks after she’d disappeared, I still lay in bed every night, thinking I’d heard the telltale tinkle of her bell through the cat flap or a plaintive cry on the garage roof. I’d tiptoe down to check but find no sign of her. When I slid back into bed, Massimo would stretch out his hand to squeeze mine, pulling me to his chest while I sobbed. I couldn’t give up on her: just today Sandro and I had done another round of our neighbourhood, pinning up little pictures of her staring into the camera with her gorgeous amber eyes, urging people to search their sheds and garages.

Somehow her disappearance brought all my grief about my dad slowly losing his memory frothing up into a frenzy of feelings I found it hard to control. Every drawing pin I pushed into a gatepost, every poster I blu-tacked into a shop window made me feel as though I was trying to recover myself, not just the cat. It was like offering a reward for the woman I was ten years ago, before Massimo wooed me with his Victorian home, his senior position at work, his desire for children. Back then, as a twenty-five-year-old, living at home in the 1930s semi I shared with Dad, Massimo had offered me a vision of belonging to a new tribe. A family that held impromptu barbecues, popped champagne for the smallest celebration, always had enough in the pot for one more. Nothing like our home with its net curtains, butter knife and Tupperware, my whole outlook constrained by my dad’s well-meaning advice: ‘Don’t take on too much.’

And part of Massimo’s charm had been his insistence that ‘You’re the only woman in the world I want to make babies with.’

How flattering, how straightforward it had all sounded.

I hadn’t realised that Massimo wanted a specific type of child: robust, sporty and confident, a mirror image of his tastes, his abilities, his intellect. Not, apparently, a son like Sandro – thoughtful and artistic – whose very presence seemed to irritate rather than enchant Massimo.

But now, Misty’s disappearance had presented us with an unlikely silver lining. Massimo had become much kinder to Sandro, as though he’d finally started to get the measure of our sensitive little boy. It had been several weeks since Massimo had raised his voice over an errant sweet paper on the sofa or a stray sock on the stairs. Tentative seeds of hope gathered; perhaps Sandro’s devastation had reminded Massimo how much he loved him.