I close my eyes and try, desperately, to think back to the afternoon of 12th May but there’s nothing. It’s like my brain has been wiped. I can remember snippets of detail from earlier in the month. The May procession. The school spring fair. And I remember Elspeth had a new interest: Native Americans. She’d borrowed a book from the school library all about them. And she had wanted to make a dream catcher. Yes, I remember that. I went into town, to the craft shop, and bought willow sticks and wool and netting, and Elspeth had sat at the kitchen table and got started on it. Was that the day before the accident or the previous weekend? I’m not sure. I sit up in the bed, my heart pounding.

I think hard about that dream catcher. The wool was purple and blue: Elspeth’s favourite colours. I see myself sitting at the kitchen table weaving strands of blue wool across the surface of the willow circles and Elspeth’s voice, loud and insistent: ‘No, Mummy, you’re doing it wrong. The feathers have to be next to the pine cones.’

My heart sank as I looked up at her. I was useless at crafting, always had been. Unlike the other mums at the school who could knock up a knitted jumper or a batch of muffins effortlessly, I was seriously lacking on the domestic skills front.

‘You can’t put two feathers next to each other, Mummy, or it won’t look right. Sophie’s mum showed us how to do it.’

‘Okay, okay,’ I snapped, slamming the feathers on to the table. ‘Well why don’t you ask Sophie’s bloody mum to do it.’

And then, right on cue, Sean had walked in. Home from work early for once. I remember the look he gave me, as if to say, Honestly, Maggie, arguing with a ten-year-old?

‘Do you want me to help, Elspeth?’ he said, putting his briefcase down and loosening his tie. ‘I’m sure I’ll be able to work it out. Even after a full day at the office and a six a.m. start.’

He’d addressed this last point to me.

I decided not to retaliate. We’d done nothing but argue for months and I couldn’t face another row.

‘Right, what have we got here then?’ he said, settling in next to Elspeth.

‘It’s a dream catcher,’ she replied, not looking up from the piece of twisted willow that she was busy threading feathers round. ‘And it has to be exactly like the one in this book.’

‘Okay,’ said Sean, picking up the book that Elspeth had propped up in front of her. ‘Native American Crafting. Sounds great.’