She hands me an identical T-shirt and says, “Here, I thought you might want to wear this.”

I take it from her. “Thanks, Mum,” I say, letting her stroke my hair a couple of times. It’s our code, our way of letting each other know we’re not angry anymore.

I hold Mum’s hand as we walk out into the dusky pink early-evening light. They would have liked that, Meg and Grace, the pink light. The atmosphere is hushed, a little nervous. No one has done this before, gathered together to mourn but also to hope. People hold candles in jars, passing a flame to each other with sad, mild smiles—what else can they do? The candles dance, trapped and beautiful. Grace’s face is everywhere I look. She’s staring up, chin thrust forward, grinning into the camera. That’s how I remember her. Grace spent her life looking up. Unlike most girls her age, she never learnt how to pout. She always smiled with the abandonment of a toddler—chin raised high, cheeks puffed out like dough balls.

I squeeze Mum’s hand and we walk towards the crowd.

“Oh, I almost forgot.” Mum stops and takes a badge out of her pocket, the same photo of Grace printed on the front.

“Maggie from the Wishmakers had them made up,” Mum says before pinning it with shaky hands just above my heart. I kiss Mum’s cheek, a camera flashes.

There are more people here than I anticipated. They stand in small huddles, like sheep in a field when it rains. I spot Martin and Sylvia, of course, and Zara, who waves at me but is then nudged by the guy next to her to stop. A nurse, Lola, who used to visit Grace at home is standing next to an elderly gray-haired man I think might be Dr. Parker, Grace’s GP. Barry, who is as yellow and wrinkled as the roll-up cigarettes he likes to smoke, is standing with his wife, Marie, who smiles a small, wobbly smile at me. Barry and Marie lived next door to Granddad before he died. From a long line of tin miners, Barry was forced into early retirement when all the mines closed in the early nineties. There are many more faces I don’t recognize, some moved by tragedy, and others—I imagine—who are drawn to it. Could one of them know where Grace is? I don’t see Jon. The crowd opens, like a slow wave, parting to allow Mum to walk to the front.

There is something a bit sacred about Mum tonight, like she rules in this weird new hierarchy. A few cameras click and, like fingers on piano keys, they seem to set the mood: tense, like we’re all holding our breath. A couple of photos of Grace and Meg are on easels at the front of the crowd, just where number 52’s lawn begins. The one of Meg is the photo all the news channels have been using. She’s younger than she was when she died, slimmer. It’s close up, but still a flattering photo. Her face is at an angle to the camera, smiling like she’s mid-laugh, her brown hair just brushing her shoulders, the freckle below her right eye visible. It was the one Mum gave them to use: she knew Meg liked it. But when I look at it now, Meg’s forehead starts to crack in on itself like a dropped egg, her eyes staring but empty. A camera flashes and I quickly look away.