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all over you, does it?’

      Tyler narrowed his eyes, and looked decidedly piqued, but, refusing to be beaten, he soon rallied again. ‘Like you’d know,’ he quipped sharply. ‘For your information, plenty of girls like my hair just the way it is, thanks – something you’d have spotted if you actually went to school.’

      I exchanged a glance with Lauren and Riley, who were struggling to hide their grins. There was no malice to be seen. It was just the sort of pretend-tetchy banter Ty and Keeley had begun to exchange on a daily basis. ‘Like cat and dog sometimes,’ I observed, as Keeley chased him out of the kitchen brandishing a tail comb.

      The girls were all ready for action (Mike, David and Kieron having been assembled for the occasion and detailed to take the grandkids to football) and were both at the dining table, with hair washed and towels wrapped round their heads. I tapped Riley on the shoulder. ‘It’s like you and flipping Kieron all over again.’

      The girls now exchanged a look between themselves. Which I saw. ‘What?’ I said.

      ‘Er, not quite like that, mother,’ Riley said, grinning at her sister-in-law.

      ‘Like what, then?’ I said, fearing I knew what might be coming, even as I was in dogged denial.

      Riley tutted. ‘Mum, surely you can see it? Me and Lauren have only been here half an hour, and, seriously? You honestly can’t see it?’

      I knew exactly what she meant, and my heart sank. ‘Oh, stop it, Riley,’ I said (still feeling dogged). ‘You’re imagining things. I mean, I know Tyler was a bit in awe of her initially – God help us – and she’s a pretty girl, so that’s understandable. But not any more. He’s well over that now. But her sweet on him? No way. Yes, I have to admit, a couple of weeks ago I thought that maybe he was a bit drawn to her, but no, that was just him being a boy, being around a pretty teenage girl. It’s fine, he’s over all that now.’

      Lauren shook her head. ‘He’s really not, Casey,’ she said. ‘Riley’s right. Just watch them. And it’s not just Tyler, either. Keeley’s just the same, whatever you say. Proper flirting. Listen to her giggling in there!’

      I glanced into the living room, were they were darting round the furniture in their mutual quest to mess up each other’s hair. ‘Hardly flirting,’ I suggested, but there was really no denying it; and I probably didn’t need Riley and Lauren’s ‘Come on, Mum!’ to hammer home the point. Our new ‘homebody-off-to-college’ version of a previously distant, shut-down Keeley was making her mark in more ways than one. Food for thought. And definitely cause for vigilance.

      ‘I reckon you should have a quiet word with Ty, Mum,’ suggested Riley. ‘Don’t you? Just to make it clear that she’s moving on. And that while she’s here she’s out of bounds. He’ll get that. He knows the score with her, doesn’t he?’

      That she’s dabbled in paid-for phone sex, I thought grimly. Yes, he does. But not this morning of all mornings, please.

      Riley grinned at Lauren. ‘Bless her, she’s so innocent,’ she said.

      ‘No I’m not,’ I huffed. ‘And stop trying to stress me out, okay? I’ll deal with it – if it even turns out to be an “it” – as and when. Meanwhile, let’s get this salon open for business. Keeley! You’re needed!’ I shouted. ‘And Tyler, if you’re adamant you’re not up for modelling, you can go and do some revision till Denver comes over. Right, come on,’ I said, waving a hand over the array of rollers, tongs, hairdryers and straighteners we’d laid out. ‘Oh, and even better news. Riley’s giving you free rein over her make-up bag, so you do the whole hog – have them looking proper belles of the ball. For a change,’ I added, before ducking, sharpish.

      We spent the rest of that Saturday in welcome good spirits, and for the first time since Keeley had come to live with us. And in the end we made a day of it, as Mike, Tyler and Denver – who was equally resistant to having his hair interfered with – went off to help Kieron decorate his spare bedroom, heroically taking all the little ones along too.

      So a fun girly day couldn’t help but ensue – one in which I finally learned how to turn around the camera on my phone and take ‘selfies’.

      And, true to her promise (make that ‘threat’), after her induction the previous day, Keeley gave me the works. I’d never had so much different make-up on all at once, much to Riley’s amusement. ‘I dare you to go out like that for your birthday, Mum,’ she teased. ‘If Dad would be seen dead with you, that is!’

      With everything that had been going on lately, my birthday had been the last thing on my mind. And wouldn’t have been the first thing on my mind in any year, these days, except the biggies – and as this wasn’t one of them, I wasn’t that bothered. After all, when you get to my age it’s increasingly a trade-off – between the fun of a party as set against the stark reminder that you are a whole year older than you were before.

      ‘It’s my birthday soon too,’ Keeley said, as she finished off Lauren’s manicure. And it struck me that she’d said it in a different spirit than before too. Less of the ‘I’m sixteen soon, so …’ and some stark pronouncement or other, but as any teenager might at the prospect of a special day.

      Except this one wouldn’t be special, because it couldn’t help but involve a similar trade-off. Between cherished freedom (well, Keeley’s take on freedom, anyway) and the realisation that she didn’t have a family with whom to share it. Once again, the vulnerable abused child took precedence in my mind over the difficult teenager. ‘Then we should do something, shouldn’t we?’ I heard myself saying.

      ‘Yes, let’s, Mum,’ Riley said – she was a good-time girl through and through. Where I always joked I had fostering antennae, Riley’s were definitely more like deeley-bobbers. ‘How about a little parteeeeey maybe?’ she went on. ‘A joint one, perhaps? We need to do something.’

      ‘I’ll think about it,’ I promised, already knowing we probably would. After all, we were trying to keep positive, weren’t we? And what better way to extend the hand of trust and hope to Keeley than to make her birthday part of my own special day?

      ‘Oh, go on then,’ I said. ‘Let’s. Well, once I’ve run it by Dad first, obviously.’ And Keeley’s answering smile was all the confirmation I needed to convince me it was the right thing to do.

      There’s a fine line between positivity and naïvety, however, and if it’s one that’s worth teetering across so you don’t become negative and cynical, I should still have perhaps been more realistic about such progress as we’d made.

      Monday morning sold me a dummy, because it went like clockwork, with Keeley fairly skipping off through the entrance to the Reach for Success centre; so keen to get in there that my words of reassurance – about not worrying about it seeming strange, and reminding her to make use of the student counsellors if she needed to – mostly fell in the swirl of air that she left in her wake.

      But it was a different matter when I brought her back home. The journey itself was certainly positive, in that she couldn’t seem to stop enthusing about it, but we’d not been in ten minutes – Tyler had narrowly beaten us to it – when she announced that she was planning on going out straight after tea.

      ‘To the skate park,’ she explained (which was a plus, at least, I thought – in that she was supplying that information without being asked). ‘If that’s okay? With Gemma and Kate. They’re on the same course as me.’

      ‘Well, I suppose so,’ I said, even though she wasn’t exactly asking permission, nor, strictly speaking, did she need to. Hadn’t I been told that often enough? ‘But you’ve got college again tomorrow,’ I pointed out. ‘So I’d like you in by 8 p.m. latest, okay?’

      She was about to pull a face but I watched her think better of it. ‘Okay,’ she said, slipping off the coat she’d be donning again an hour later. ‘Oh, and by the way, I’ve invited them to

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