“Hey,” she nudged him with her foot, and he gave a delicate sort of grunt. “Ben?”

“Mhm?”

“I hate to say this, especially after … But you can’t sleep here. I have to go to my mum’s funeral in the morning.”

He grew very still in the bed, and then turned over. In the half light from the hallway, she could see the firm muscles of his stomach and the soft thatch of hair on his chest, slightly darker than that on his head. It was tempting suddenly to see if she could get him to stay for longer after all, but it was clear from the way he sat up that the word “funeral” had scattered all chances of that.

“Ah. Shit. You didn’t say anything.”

“What is there to say?” She sat up, too, her arms around the tops of her knees as she watched him climb out of bed, looking for his pants. “They’re by the door. Sorry, it’s just … I doubt I’m going to be good company in the morning. You know?”

“Do you have someone to be here with you?” He turned toward her in the doorway, enough light on him that she could see the genuine expression of concern on his face, and abruptly Heather felt dirty, ashamed and more painfully attracted to him than ever. It was too easy to imagine what her mother would say if she were still alive, the “disappointed but not surprised” tone of voice.

“My friend Nikki is going to go with me, and half her family, I think. I’ll be fine.”

“I can come. I …”

She made herself face him and tried a smile. “But thank you, anyway. I mean. For being here tonight.”

When he was gone, Heather put on a dressing gown and went back down to the living room. It was very late, and her body ached in a number of different ways, but even so she fired up her laptop and began typing. The story was coming together.

CHAPTER

28

THE DAY OF the funeral dawned bright and sunny, although the house was still chilly and saturated with shadows. Heather, who had been up for hours, found herself caught in a state somewhere between exhausted and wired, repeatedly washing her face and drinking strong black coffee in an attempt to focus.

She chose a pair of jeans that could still charitably be called black rather than gray, and a simple black blouse, laying them out on the bed and then avoiding them all morning. Over and over she found herself going to the windows and looking out at the row of dark trees at the edges of her mother’s lawn, half expecting to see someone waiting there, and her mind kept returning to the note: I know what you are, and I think you do too. She told herself that it was important she go to the funeral. It was closure, a way of putting her mother and her spiteful notes behind her. But when she returned to the windows, she got the sense that she was missing something; that there was a message, kind or otherwise, that she was failing to get. In an attempt to take her mind off it, she emailed Diane the notes she had so far, along with the comment “this is a very ROUGH DRAFT, so don’t judge me too harshly.”