If I'm going to tell this story properly, then I have to start with the first serious relationship. The one that gave me the best title I've ever had. Mum. I was eighteen. Which obviously meant I knew absolutely everything about life. Because don't we all at eighteen? I met a guy. We fell in love. Or at least, we fell into what I understood love to be at that age. I was young. He was young. And at that age you don't necessarily think about where a relationship is going in ten

So there I was. Back living with Mum and Dad. I had my daughter. I was starting to go out again. Starting to remember that underneath being somebody's mum and somebody's ex, there was still actually a person in there. And that person loved cars. I'd been going to Strathy since I was about fifteen. Cars. Friends. Sunday-night cruises. That was my thing. So once I was back home, I started going again. Sometimes my daughter even came with me. I was still Mum. Always. But I was a

He’d been arrested. After everything that had happened, after months of living in a world where practically every move I made had to be explained, proved or defended, he was finally somewhere he couldn’t get to me. And I was still sitting in the police station. For once, nobody was demanding anything from me. The police asked if I needed a break. They got me juice. They gave me time. Nobody shouted because I couldn’t remember something immediately. Nobody accused me of lying