Everyone cheered when I wheeled myself into the sitting room. Then no one really seemed to know what to do. I hadn’t actually done anything they could congratulate me on, apart from staying alive again and it’s hard to say “Well done you for not dying again” without sounding mental. Susie came up to me first, looking like a doll in her Santa hat, and replaced my beanie with a scratchy elf hat before kissing my cheek.

“Welcome home, babe.”

I love Susie, but it was Cara I wanted to see most. I asked if she was coming later.

“Ah love, she’s at college, English mock A-level today,” Susie said, holding up crossed, manicured fingers.

Standing behind a plate of mince pies, Dr. Parker waggled his gray eyebrows at me and Mum squeezed my hand. I smiled. And then everyone else pressed their lips against me, like I was some lucky symbol they all wanted to touch. But it was all right because Mum kept holding my hand, so I knew I was doing OK.

David called Martin a hero because Martin had been watching from his and Sylvia’s house when the reporter went crazy. Martin saw him stagger out of his car, heard him shout Mum’s name, and then Martin called the police. Martin seemed to be enjoying the party, liked being congratulated. Whenever anyone asked him what happened, the words bubbled out of him like a shaken-up can of Coke. He put his hand on the back of my neck while a photographer—not Ben—took our photo, with Mum holding my hand on my other side. The Cornish Chronicle is running' an apology for printing the article. Susie said the editor should’ve been fired but Mum is glad he’s getting a second chance—he has a young family, apparently. Everyone apart from me ate cake and drank fizzy drinks, and everyone talked about what a bastard that journalist was. Mum kept squeezing my hand and looked pretty and happy.

Sylvia, Zara, and Susie cleaned up after the party while Mum, at last, helped me to my room. Cookie was asleep on my bed, like she’d been waiting all along for me to come home. While Mum unpacked my things and got my syringe of food and medicine ready I looked at the Christmas and Get Well Soon cards people sent while we were in the hospital. A lot of them were from people we’ve never met. They were all open so I knew Mum had already read them. She’ll have put any money sent safely in our red box at the back of her wardrobe, like always. Banks scammed Granddad out of loads of money, so we don’t trust them anymore. The cards said the usual stuff, how brave we are, that they’re sorry our lives are so hard. Some say their dad or husband used to be violent. They tell us stories about how they used to be hit with frying pans; they’re trying to tell us they know what it’s like, that we’re the same. But none of them say their dad killed their brother. So none of them know what our lives are like. They really don’t.