The memory is indelibly marked in my mind. I came home from school, aged six, and almost before the front door had clicked shut, Dad made the announcement that would change everything. ‘Your mother has gone,’ he said.
Dad’s not a cold person, so I can only assume this formality betrayed his own discomfort at having to tell a child that the sun at the centre of her tiny universe wasn’t coming back.
Mum had left without saying goodbye, taking