He’d understand, she knows he would, but it’d be unfair to cancel. It’s just lucky that she’s here at all, that she’d let Laura persuade her that now, more than ever, she’s no good to Coop rundown and exhausted. Besides, she thinks, trying to convince herself, a bit of normality will do her good. A piece of the safe world pulled down from the clouds.

She looks in the mirror over the basin, then through the window. He’s limping up from the parking bay by the lemon tree, puffing a little, head down.

Hi Ewan, she calls, flying into the house. Let yourself into the treatment room, will you? Door’s open. I’ll be with you in a moment.

~

After the session, she notices he’s standing with a protective hand on his lower back, right. She nods at his hip. How’s the pain?

OK. Stiff more than sore, he mumbles. She’ll be right. Always good by night.

Well, put a heat pack on it every few hours. And the gel after that. OK?

Yep, he says. Righty-o. Good news about yer bloke, Avvie. Tell him good luck from me, eh. Bloody miracle.

She hands him back his card and receipt but he’s easing himself into the chair, making himself comfortable. He’s not going.

Reckon he oughta get an award for what he did. He shakes his head. What-I-mean-ter-say, a medal or something.

She shakes her head. He’d hate that, Ewan. He’d tell you he was just doing his job.

Huh. He got that woman out, god rest her, and that little girl woulda died, for sure. A hero, he is, straight up.

Yeah, she thinks, he is. She stands, and Ewan gets the message.

All right, then, Avvie-luv. Call you next week, eh.

23

Laura

Laura sits where she has sat these last weeks, watching for breaths, for the rise and fall of her son’s strong heart. She becomes aware of a restless staccato, her boot tapping on the lower rung of the bed. No. Stop that. Cooper has enough to worry about without absorbing her unease, too.

Could Avril be right? Is he listening for Meggie’s voice, waiting for her story? Laura’s boot starts tapping again. She won’t be reading him anything, not from this last book. A sudden wave of nausea rises, plummets. To discover this child-uncle, this Steven, and then to read of his terrible death. And her grandfather—she’d known he’d been in the war but not much else, and she can’t remember now whether it’s because she’d made assumptions and hadn’t asked, or because she’d been fobbed off.

Tap-tap-tap.

And Kathryn … all her mother’s contradictions.

She shakes herself, a determined shedding, and concentrates on Cooper, aware but not. In twilight. What is it, this twilight?