‘HOW ARE YOU, LOVE?’ he said slowly and loudly.

‘Better for seeing you, Da. Did Ma threaten you with a bag of oranges?’

‘No, I came myself.’

‘Aren’t you a big boy . . .’ she said, and Lenny nodded apologetically.

‘I’m sorry, Grace.’

‘For what, Da?’

‘For not, well, um, for . . .’

‘You’re not sorry.’

‘We have a difference of opinion, Gracie, but I love you and I want to be there for you.’

‘Do you wanna see them, Da?’

‘Ah, now!’ He stood up and backed away.

‘Sorry, Jack, she’s been showing them to everyone.’

‘Ah Grace, what are you doing?’

‘They’re not mine, Da, they’re not real, they’re an example of modern medicine.’

Lenny and Jack shared a concerned look. Grace hit the button and her eyes started to swim.

‘The good news is, I love drugs.’

Jack visited his daughter while she was in hospital and every day for a month after she left; they never, ever referred to her mastectomies and implants again.

He met Derek in his office to sign the contracts. He had been to the office once before, when his daughter was excitedly showing him around the place.

‘This is my cubicle, Da,’ she said, and it was hard to miss: there were photographs of Juliet, her family, Johnny, the band and one with just him and her. It made him feel so proud – his daughter, the journalist. He passed her old cubicle; someone else was sitting in it, a young man with a checked shirt and a bun in his hair. No photos adorned his walls, but he kept body spray and hand cream on display. All traces of Rabbit were gone.

He sat at Derek’s desk and he showed him the contracts he had already signed. ‘You just have to sign here.’

He looked and picked up the pen; he hesitated. He had spent a year fighting with his wife about this and that. Everything, really. They seemed to agree on nothing anymore and now this, the thing that divided them most, Rabbit’s book.

‘Is everything all right, Jack?’ Derek asked.

‘It’s fine,’ he said, but it wasn’t fine at all.

‘You can take it home and think about it,’ Derek said.

‘You’re a patient man, Derek. It’s taken us over a year to get here.’

‘What are your fears, Jack?’ he asked.

‘Me wife,’ Jack said.

‘She doesn’t want this.’

‘She thinks that by publishing Rabbit’s last days we’ll be exposing her to public scrutiny, and people can be so cruel. She doesn’t want her girl to be ripped apart by strangers.’

‘I understand that, but a lot of people will identify, they’ll take comfort from her, they might even love her a little.’

‘She wanted this, Derek.’

‘She really did.’

‘Did I ever tell you what she said to me on the day you published her first blog?’

‘No.’