As I walk through to the reception area of the hospital some time later I think of all the ways I can make it up to Mum when she wakes up.

I’ll save up all my pocket money and buy us theatre tickets to see Wicked.

I’ll cook her dinner every weekend and bake her a cake for her birthday.

We’ll visit Kuwait together, so she can show me her house for real, and tell me all about her life.

I’ll never take her for granted again.

Ever.

Chapter 28

I gasp when I see the house this time.

The cracks in the walls have grown; they start small, like at the very top of a tree, and steadily get bigger, like the large base of an oak. Gouges cluster in every corner, and the branches desperately try to hold the house together, crawling over the photo frames, wrapping themselves round the walls protectively. They wriggle like worms or fingers on a giant hand. But the house is more branch than wall now.

Flowers bloom from every corner, with all the memories I now have of Mum. But even as they bloom the house is dying. The walls have lost great big chunks, the sunlight streaming inside throwing strands of light into the foyer. The glass table in the middle of it is cracked, and the rest of the furniture looks old, like it’s been abandoned for years. The plants that create a canopy above the hallway droop, and I’m forced to push them aside to move from room to room. They look like they’re bowing to me, but the truth is they’re dying.

I can still hear the house’s heartbeat, though it’s faint. Thump. Pause. Thump. Thump. Pause.

I can’t help but feel like the house is warning me. It’s telling me that I’m running out of time to save Mum, to collect all her memories.

Despite the fact that the walls are crumbling, the door to Mum’s room stays firmly shut. The wood is splintered in places once more, but only enough for me to peer through. I do, and catch my second glimpse of grown-up Mum. I had worried that, perhaps, I had imagined her there.

I step back from it before I get sucked in completely. I don’t want to get sidetracked again. Who knows what might happen if I do?

I end up back in the kitchen, a trail of fallen debris leading me there. A chair in the corner of the room glows, and so I sit in it, and wait.

‘Where have you been?’ my grandmother demands. ‘Why are you wearing my dress? And what is that in your hands?’

Aminah turns to Mama, clearly surprised to see her there in the middle of the night.