I was fairly confident it wasn’t a garden gnome to match the one Mum had bought me: ‘I couldn’t resist him. As soon as I saw him, I thought of your new garden.’

I wasn’t sure what had made me laugh the most – the fact that Mum had spotted a gnome playing an accordion and somehow seen it as a must-have feature for our patio or Nico’s face when I opened it. I bet he was bloody delighted that, after all those evenings he’d spent clearing weeds, training a clematis over an archway and faffing about with pots to ‘draw the eye at the right level’, my mum had taken one look and thought, ‘What this place needs is a gnome.’

I picked carefully at the Sellotape, sensing Mum hovering, ready to stash the poppy-print paper to reuse another time.

Inside the box lay an antique silver and sapphire pendant. ‘It’s gorgeous, Anna. Thank you so much.’

She smiled. ‘It belonged to my mother. It was always a sadness to her that I didn’t have a daughter, but I know she would want you to have it.’

Tears pricked. I gave her a full-blown Parker hug. She accepted it rather than embraced it, but the fact that I even dared risk disturbing her scarf was such a huge step forward from when I first joined the Farinelli family.

But with the tact typical of a thirteen-year-old, Sam failed to disguise his lack of interest in Anna’s big ‘You have been accepted into our family’ gesture and butted into my thanks with a ‘Can I bring the cake out now?’ He was like a steam engine that needed a regular shovelling in of fuel. At least his rubbish father had served one purpose: Sam was already a good few inches taller than Mum and me and showed every sign of inheriting his dad’s slim frame. At my lack of resistance, he went running up the steps to our cottage. Anna did a quiet tut in deference to my birthday but that little telltale click of her tongue was still audible. I had failed to fall in with the Farinelli rules about eating – refusing to peel apples, finishing dinner with a big mug of milky coffee and never feeling the need to mop up sauce with a piece of bread. Hence I didn’t give a hoot that the kids would hoover up my birthday cake before we’d had a barbecue. Sausages, burgers, chocolate cake… it all went down the same way regardless of scoffing order.

I watched Sam go, glancing over at Nico grinning away, a man at peace with the world. These days he’d lost the tense look he used to have, no longer braced for bad news or another problem to resolve.

He leaned over and squeezed my hand, whispering, ‘Grow old with me, the best is yet to come.’

I wasn’t really into fridge magnet romance but since we’d moved into a home we’d chosen together, I’d finally stopped expecting him to realise there was a thinner, prettier, smarter wife hiding round the corner ready to do a better job than me. When I’d suggested my plan for this evening, he’d blown out his cheeks in surprise. ‘Crikey. That will make it a birthday to remember.’

‘Do you think I’m mad?’

He’d laughed, kissed my nose and said, ‘No. I think you’re kind-hearted and brave.’ He paused. ‘And sometimes a little over-optimistic. Which is all part of your wonderful charm.’

And now there was no going back. Despite my belief it would all turn out fine, I was jittering about, counting napkins and straightening forks as though it might make a difference to the outcome.

Although Anna had softened towards all of us in the wake of her perfect son turning out to be a complete shit, she hadn’t quite lost her desire to get the room to skip to her needs and wants. When Sam appeared with the chocolatey tower he’d made with Mum, she threw her hands in the air and said, ‘My goodness. Are you going to eat that before dinner?’

Mum got up to light the candles. She acted as though Anna was a small buzzing noise in the corner of a room that no one could identify. I took the stance of ‘It’s my birthday and it’s cake before carrots if it suits me.’

I nudged Nico. ‘Where’s Francesca?’

He got to his feet. I put out my hand. ‘I’ll go. Just hold the cake pyrotechnics for a minute. Let me see if she wants to join in.’

When we moved to Moneypenny Cottage – or as Sam called it ‘The James Bond Love Shack’ – the happy new start Nico and I imagined away from the bad memories of Siena Avenue wasn’t quite the party-popping triumph we’d hoped for. Francesca turned in on herself, acting as though she was a guest who’d overstayed her welcome but didn’t have anywhere else to go. None of her old posters made it up onto her bedroom walls. In fact, the general skankiness that had driven me mad in the old house – dirty plates, piles of clean clothes mixed with discarded underwear, make-up spilt on the carpet – had given way to a clinical and impersonal bedroom, despite us offering to take her shopping for a new lamp, duvet set and rug.

On the upside, she was no longer downright rude to me. I couldn’t deny it was a pleasure to be able to whip out the Bisto without being told that Caitlin made her flipping gravy with the chicken juices and flour. And she’d never brought up the flaming jewellery box again. In fact, Francesca was so furious about Caitlin having an affair with Massimo, she never mentioned her at all.

Nico tried to talk to her but she either blanked him or gave him both barrels, leaving him subdued and distant for days afterwards. ‘You let her do it! How could you not notice that she was screwing Uncle Massimo? Did you even care? She probably wouldn’t even have stayed with you for so long if you hadn’t had me. I bet she wished I’d never been born, then she could have gone off with Uncle Massimo.’

Initially, a small walnutty bit of my mean little heart had been glad Caitlin was no longer the pinnacle of all things wonderful. But when I fished all of Francesca’s photos of Caitlin out of the kitchen bin, I managed to locate my inner grown-up. It was a fair bet that, long term, equating your mother’s affair with your uncle with proof that she didn’t love you would more than likely lead Francesca into the path of unsuitable men, ill-advised cocktails and dodgy substances.

I started up the oak staircase. I suddenly became aware of the sound of my flip-flops slapping on the wooden treads. No music from the landing. My heart leapt. It was all too quiet. With the exception of Sam, none of us had made any real connection with Francesca for months. A great wave of foreboding surged through me. All sorts of horrible headlines about teenage suicide ran through my head until a scream started gathering in my throat. I burst into her bedroom without knocking, my eyes scanning the beams. I nearly fell to the floor with relief when I discovered her sitting on the other side of her bed, flicking through the photos of Caitlin I’d rescued from the bin and put in an envelope in her dressing table.

‘Francesca!’ I knew by the way she looked so startled I’d shrieked rather than spoken. I concentrated on getting my words out at a normal volume. ‘Are you all right, love? There’s cake downstairs if you want some. We’re being very rebellious and eating it before the barbecue.’ Relief made me rattle on without waiting for a reply. ‘Anna’s doing her nut but trying not to say anything…’

Francesca looked at the photos in her lap. ‘I’m fine.’

I tried again. ‘I’d love it if you joined us. You don’t have to, but I know Anna would like to see you and Lara and Sandro are on their way. With a couple of special guests.’

That piqued her interest for a moment. But it didn’t last. ‘Maybe later,’ she said, sweeping the photos into a pile at the side of her.

I hesitated but the Parker need to get everything out on the table won the day. ‘You don’t need to feel ashamed of missing your mum, whatever she’s done.’

Francesca looked at me properly for the first time. ‘I hate her for what she did. It’s just so disgusting and, well, weird. Sleeping with my dad and my uncle.’ The face she made as she contemplated her mother having sex was so teenage and outraged I struggled to keep a straight face.

I sat on the bed, glancing down at the photos of Caitlin’s elfin face, all her features so like Francesca’s – the neat nose, the definite chin, the well-defined eyebrows.

‘Can I say one thing?’

Francesca nodded.

‘It’s so hard when your parents mess up because you feel they should be so much better than that, that they should know all the answers and have grown out of making mistakes. And they certainly shouldn’t make ones as obvious as falling in love with your dad’s brother.’ I pressed on, hoping that Francesca might feel better if I made out Caitlin had been caught in some star-crossed lover scenario rather than being some over-sexed floozy having it off next door at any opportunity. ‘But it doesn’t mean she didn’t love your dad in her own way. It’s often not that black and white. It definitely doesn’t mean she didn’t love you.’