At my divorce hearing the judge ruled I’d leave with nothing. My husband leaned down and told me to see how long I’d last. Then the courtroom doors went.

You do not ask why this placement and not the last one. You do not ask how long for. You do not ask what happens in September.

Because asking is the mechanism by which the good thing gets looked at again.

And in that system, anything that gets looked at again gets taken off you. Every time. Four times, in my case, between five and eleven.

So you take it. And you say thank you. And you keep your head down and you do not put your hand up and you do not make anybody open a file.

I was extremely good at that. Better than most.

It is the reason I came out of that unit at eighteen in one piece when two of the four of us did not.

And it is also precisely why, on the fourth of June, 2022, I sat in a solicitor’s office on Belgrave Road —