JACK SPENT MUCH OF the first year after his daughter’s death alone. Initially he was holed up in the attic reading his old diaries, and that took him from May till August. When he emerged it was to an empty house – his wife was MIA most of the time. A woman who had once loved her home so much she had to be almost jimmied out of it, now seemed hell-bent on going anywhere and everywhere just to escape it. Maybe Rabbit’s corpse in the dining room wasn’t the best idea in the world. While Molly’s world expanded, his contracted. She always seemed busy, with friends to see, posters and banners to write, meetings to attend. She’d somehow become political in his absence. She cared about things outside her family now, broader and bigger things like the right to keep the Irish water supply from the private sector. She was rallying, protesting, rebelling with the Irish masses. She had a cause, a reason to get up and get out. He stayed locked away with his memories. He missed his wife but at the same time he felt more content when alone. He wasn’t able for the new world. The rain was too wet, the wind too wild, the sun too bright and the night was so very long and dark. It was easier to remain silent than to talk. It was better to sit than to walk. He’d rather read than watch TV. There was so much pain, inside and outside. Everywhere he turned, people were crying out for help, in despair. They were broke or broken, homeless or a few pay cheques away from it. They were lonely, lost, terrorised walking corpses, and the whole country was screaming Help me. They’d been calling out to the government to stop crippling them to pay the banks, but their voices had gone unheard. While Rabbit lay dying his countrymen’s pain did not penetrate his mind and soul, but afterwards their mass suffering meshed with his own and it was so intolerable that he disengaged completely.

In September he received a call from Rabbit’s editor. He had some news. ‘We nearly have a deal,’ he said. He’d been working on Rabbit’s book since she died, and through an agent he had sent it to a number of publishing companies. Two had declined it, but two others had bid against one another.

‘That’s great,’ Jack said.

‘The company we’re going for isn’t offering the most up front, but my agent and I believe they have a better marketing plan and that’s what we all want, isn’t it, Jack?’

‘My girl out in the world, absolutely.’