When I got here I tried so hard to make myself useful but Lolly didn’t bite. The hard-core separatists aren’t subtle. When Lolly and I went out together, they stared and whispered. As if she wasn’t aware she was making the Swans bend their rules because her daughter couldn’t take care of her own kid. I hated the fact that I’d made her the object of spite. But there was nothing I could do. It was January, and I was glad to have the excuse to bury my head in a scarf and look down as I walked. The wind picked up specks of sea and froze them and spat them in my face.

I go to her bedside drawer and take out a Valium, pop it on my tongue, and scoop a swallow of water from the tap in her bathroom. A yellow Post-it note reminds me to turn the tap hard so that the water won’t drip. I’m so sick of old folks’ notes and rules and tuts and kindly advice that I almost ignore it and let it go but my phobia won’t let me. I can’t stand to think that the water might make its way in here, into my house.

I manage to swallow the next one dry because I can’t make myself go back to the faucet and touch the water again. Swallowing takes effort. I have to pull and pull and force spit up into my mouth and try to push it down hard against the pill in my throat. As it tries to stick against the sides, I try to pull up more spit to get it down. Oh God, my heart’s not beating right and I have to get this down.

Just in case, I take a third and go through it all again.

My breathing starts to grip onto itself. Lightly. Something gets evened out, those gulping heartbeats start to fall in step with my breaths, and my shoulders drop to what feels like a mile from my ears, and the fear goes out with the tide I can hear outside. I don’t like it. I don’t like the fact that the waves sound the same as the peace that has started to come over me, but I’m alone and it’s better than nothing. This tidal peace is better than nothing.

I tried so hard to make life easier for her. She always saw my parents when she looked at me. I have my father’s nose, the shape of his eyes. She never liked to look at him. She said she never understood why they always had to do everything the hard way. Why couldn’t she see that I was the only other person on earth who knew exactly what she meant?