My parents threw me out at sixteen after I lost my leg. Nineteen years later they wanted a million dollars for my sister — to hide why a 24 -year-old woman may never walk again.

She came hours later.

She did not hug me. She did not sit down in the chair by the bed.

She stood at the foot of it, looking at the flat part of the sheet where my leg was not, and she said:

What are we supposed to do with you now?

I was ten years old.

And from that afternoon I stopped being her daughter and became the problem. The complication. The thing that had to be worked round.

My sister stayed at the centre of everything.

Celestine had ballet. Designer clothes. Birthday parties with a marquee in the garden. Trips.

I had heavy aluminium crutches that never fitted properly, because a decent prosthetic was, in my mother’s words, an unnecessary expense at your age.

When guests came, I was sent upstairs.

Stay out of sight. We don’t need everybody asking uncomfortable questions about your leg.

She was not protecting me. She was embarrassed by me. I understood the difference by about eleven.