Cara was in a hurry. She didn’t hear me so I sat back in my chair and just watched her. She was wearing denim jeans, a black knitted scarf, a sloppy old army jacket, and the Dr. Martens she wears every day now she’s a student and not a receptionist anymore. Her hair was scrunched up in a loose bun on top of her head. It wobbled from side to side as she started running down the pavement to catch the 09:16 bus to Plymouth. Her backpack strained and as she ran I watched the zipper slide lower and lower, until the weight tipped, making the zipper slide all the way down and books fly out onto the pavement. Heat bloomed around my palms where I pressed them against the cold glass as I watched Cara shout swear words into the sky with white, icy breath. She kicked one of the books, which made me giggle, before she bent down to pick them up. She was muttering to herself and I wanted to wheel out there and help her. Maybe she could pull a sickie and we could go to the beach again, like we used to.

But then Mum called my name, told me to hurry up, said we didn’t have long and she had to get me ready for physical therapy. For the rest of the day I made up stories in my head about what could have happened if I had gone out to Cara. In the best one Cara and I were like sisters again, Dad was out of our lives, and Mum was always happy because I wasn’t sick anymore.

Every week after physical therapy, no matter what the weather, Mum drives us to Danny’s grave. The sky was gray today, but at least it wasn’t raining. Mum tucked blankets around my legs and I wheeled myself down the path while she talked to Danny. She says there are some things that are just between a mother and her son. She says I’ll understand one day, perhaps, if I can have children. She seems to talk to him so easily. I’ve tried, but nothing comes out. Today while she was talking to Danny I wheeled down the wobbly paths to read the graves I already know well.

Old favorites are “BELOVED BY ALL” PENELOPE GRAY, OCTOBER 2ND 1882—DECEMBER 28TH 1899. She was only seventeen when she died. I imagine her ghost as grumpy, pissed off she went just before the turn of the century. Then there’s WILLIAM KETTERIDGE, “LOVING FATHER, HUSBAND, AND SON,” 10TH MAY 1921—22ND NOVEMBER 1963. I always stop to stroke the etching of his cold name. I picture a good man, a man who thought that being a loving dad was the most important role in life, and to prove it he wanted “FATHER” before anything else on his headstone.

Today I played a game where I tried to find dead people who died when they were my age. When I couldn’t find any, I turned back to see if Mum had finished. She wasn’t talking to Danny anymore. Instead she was kneeling, holding on to his headstone as though she’d fall forward onto his grave without it keeping her steady. She reached for my hand as we left the cemetery and I noticed fresh soil under her light pink fingernails, from where she’d been pulling weeds from Danny’s grave.