I balled up my fists, then buried them in my pockets. I was suddenly overwhelmingly angry that it’d been Maud who died, and my mother who lived, and had to fight the urge to hurt her. ‘We buried her less than an hour ago.’

‘What’s that got to do with it?’

‘How can you talk about her like that?’

‘I thought you understood. You make hard choices for those you love. Especially those that are part of you.’

‘Like your grandson.’

‘I don’t have a grandson.’ She stood up suddenly and looked down at me. I noticed for the first time how bright her eyes were. ‘I had a daughter, and she was an angel, and I won’t let anyone say anything different about her.’

My anger left me as suddenly as it had appeared.

‘I didn’t know you felt—’

She closed her eyes. She was standing over me, and I knew I should reach out and take her hand, but my arms were too heavy to move.

‘You’re a man. I shouldn’t expect you to understand,’ she said softly. ‘The rules aren’t the same for us.’

‘I do understand.’

I looked away, and felt, rather than saw her shake herself. ‘Stay here and get warm – I’ll start supper.’

I kept my face turned to the flames until she’d left the room, then stood and made my way outside to the jetty and the boat. I lay in the middle of the lake, looking up at the birds wheeling above me through the late afternoon sky. Even though it wasn’t cold yet, I felt an iciness seep through my skin and into my bones. I closed my eyes, breathing in the smell of damp wood, and listened to the water lap gently against the sides of the boat. For some reason my mind drifted back to the day we’d spent out here on my sixteenth birthday. Maud and my mother had sat at either end while I rowed. Maud had twisted herself in her seat, so her upper half was facing outwards, elbows on the rim of the boat and chin cupped in one hand. Her hair had been up in a ponytail that had bounced when she turned suddenly to point at a giraffe disappearing into the trees along the shore, and when she shook with laughter when the champagne spurted all over me.