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It’s six in the morning, still dark. The rain is thrashing down outside – it’s been this way for days. Winter has arrived in South Africa. I can hear him before I see him – the gentle thud-thud of socked feet down the corridor. I’m awake but I shut my eyes, hoping for ten more minutes.

It’s a normal bedtime in our house. Nick is in Leo’s room reading him a story by lamplight, and I wash the girls hair, soap suds under my fingernails. It’s a deep clear bath, and I can see their fractiousness – the type that makes them grumpy and emotional and excited, all in one little body – start to melt away under the depths of the warm water.

It was probably a little bit of this: heart pain. It was a big shift to move …

She was beautiful and strong, and I liked her immediately. It was an average day at Skatties, …

(names changed) Each morning starts the same. First the quiet, dark hour, as Lily is driven to …

She didn’t come to school today, so we went to her house. Keandra (not her name) doesn’t …