Scrolling on Instagram, I was drawn to a picture of a woman posing with her mum. They shared the same red hair, and noses kissed by summer freckles. Laughter poured out of their beaming faces. It was clear that the two adored each other. I felt a sting of despair as I read the stranger’s caption about missing her lovely mum, who’d passed away. The ache in my chest wasn’t because I could relate. It was because I couldn’t. The truth was that, for years, I’d wished my mum was dead.
The soundtrack to my childhood wasn’t 80s songs, but doors slamming, things breaking or my mum wailing for hours. My dad eventually took a job abroad, leaving me to shoulder Mum’s needy and explosive emotions alone. Before he’d