‘They make my fingers greasy,’ I once moaned.

‘Oh, don’t be so silly!’ she said, chasing me around the room. Eventually Mum caught me and slathered my palms in lotion. ‘You’ll thank me when you’re my age and have the hands of a toddler.’

‘That sounds so weird,’ I said, grinning. At the time I imagined grown-up Mum walking around with tiny hands.

I still remember the way Mum laughed at that. Each note of it floated up, up, up, filling the room with joy, like birds singing on the first day of spring.

I put a pea-sized amount of hand cream on my palms, and rub it in carefully, the way Mum always does.

As I leave Mum’s room I notice a photo by her bed. It’s of my grandmother standing in front of a great big house. I’ve never met her, only seen photos. She died before I was born, but Mum used to say her soul went into my body, so it’s like she’s still here. Toddler Mum stands next to my grandmother, clinging to her skirt.

I’m so focused on my mother and grandmother that I barely notice the house. But when I do I almost gasp. Apart from the silver branches it looks exactly like the one in . . .

‘My dream,’ I say aloud.

Chapter 7

When Dad and I get to the hospital in the evening Edward waves me through right away. ‘Your mum’s doing well today,’ he says with a smile, though I’m not exactly sure what that means. She’s still in a coma after all.

When I walk into Mum’s room I see it as if for the first time. Yesterday I was too focused on Mum to notice anything else. There are two other beds in the room, alongside Mum’s, and the patients in them are asleep. I wonder what their stories are, what happened to them. I can hear their machines humming in unison, pumping air through their bodies like an orchestra. Then there’s Mum’s, just out of time with the others.

I walk over to her curtain and seeing her again sends a wave of something through me. Shock? Fear?

It’s something else, something I can’t quite pinpoint.

‘Hello, lovely.’ It’s Amanda, the nurse who helped me yesterday. She’s peering round the curtain now. I feel embarrassed to see her. ‘How are you doing today?’

‘Good, thanks.’ I smile awkwardly. I can’t stop thinking about how I cried in front of her. ‘I . . . uh . . . brought some stuff in for Mum.’ Suddenly I feel all shy again. ‘Is it OK if . . .’ My sentence fizzles out into nothing.

Amanda beams, peering into my bag. ‘Let me help you with that.’

Instead of saying thanks like a normal person, I make an indiscernible noise that sounds a bit like a cow trying to sing.

Stop being weird, Saff.