It was a terrible letter. The woman seemed to be blaming Stephen for a lot of things. Hazel had forgotten that he’d been in a car accident before he got sick, and Celia mentioned some other incidents she seemed to be irate about. It didn’t make a lot of sense. There was something about chickens. I don’t want you to try to contact Cass or Georgie again. I think you are very destructive, even though you may not mean to be. What a horrible person, Hazel thought. She crumpled up the letter into a ball and carried it through to the kitchen, where she stuffed it into the bin. It left a sour taste in her mouth. Stephen had been such a sweet kid, it didn’t make sense that anyone could have written such nasty things to him. She had been looking forward to meeting Cass, seeing the place that her brother had loved. But now a flicker of doubt crept in.

Her sister Karen had thought up the idea of the trip, but had broken her ankle the week before they were meant to set off. Owen’s sister Dawn had stepped in at the eleventh hour. The trip was meant to take Hazel’s mind off things, give her something to plan and think about. Dawn wasn’t going to let all that preparation and anticipation go to waste. She knew how much it meant to Hazel, especially the part of the trip she’d arranged in memory of her brother. Her husband Pete would be fine without her, it was only for a few weeks. In some ways Hazel was closer to Dawn than she was to Karen. The two of them had always stayed chummy and they had shared values. You didn’t have the friction, with someone who wasn’t a blood relative. Dawn was like Owen, easygoing. You could put her down anywhere and come back an hour later and she’d have made three new friends and got a recommendation for a great little spot for lunch. Hazel was more reserved. It wasn’t that she didn’t like people, she just needed to get to know them at her own pace.