I remember the times Lila’s blood sugar was low. Now, I know it’s called hypoglycaemia, but I didn’t have that word when I was ten. I just knew it was dangerous. And now, I know that low blood sugar requires glucose to bring the levels back up, but I didn’t know that back then either. Back when I was ten, and left in charge of a child. Back when her blood sugar fell one night, while Cynthia was out. Out at a party or out with a man. I don’t remember. I just remember panicking. Lila was low and my mother out. Low blood sugar was dangerous, Lila was ill. She needed her medicine. I’d seen Cynthia do it a hundred times by then. Could I manage it? I filled the syringe, just as she always did. How many units she needed, I had no idea; I just knew I had to do something to save her. I injected her stomach, exactly as Cynthia always did. And I waited. Waited for her to come back. Only she never did.

My mother screamed when she arrived home. Then she grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me till my teeth rattled.

‘Jesus Christ, Joanna, what did you do?’

‘Her blood sugar was low so I gave her the medicine …’

‘You gave her insulin when her blood sugar was low? Insulin brings it even lower! You stupid, stupid fucking idiot girl, what have you done? You’ve killed her!’

The words that have reverberated around my head for more than thirty years. You’ve killed her.

I’m sitting on the floor now, oblivious to the smell, leaning my head against the mattress. Lila deserved so much more than this room in her short life. And the way it’s been left, abandoned for thirty years, unwashed and unclean, is an insult to her. That night, Cynthia ranted and railed at me for what I did; told me I’d ruined her life, ruined everything. And yet, she couldn’t even clean the room. I should never have been left in charge of a small child. Yes, it was my fault; yes, I injected the insulin; but no, I shouldn’t have been minding a four-year-old. I shouldn’t have been administering medicine or insulin or anything at all. I was ten. I was ten years old and for the first time since that night, I can accept that it wasn’t my fault.

Angry now, I stand and pull off the covers, rolling them into a ball. What kind of woman lives for thirty years with an unmade death bed in her home? I pull the pillow off the bed, stripping its cover. The mattress, bare now, is stained in patches, dusty and mouldy. I lift that too, and shove it to the far side of the bed. For three decades, I’ve felt only guilt and sadness. Now I’m furious.

‘What are you doing?’

She’s standing in the doorway, wide awake now.

‘You couldn’t even clean the room? You just locked the door and walked away?’