I push open the door to my childhood bedroom. Everything about it remains the same. The poster of a Hutchence-years Kylie above my bed; Wendy James over on the other side. The half spent bottle of Kouros our David used to nick until his teenage girlfriend bought him CK One. I climb inside the single bed, my body heavy with the weight of the day, of the past week or so. When I close my eyes, my thoughts rush from Susan to Kat to James to Michelle, and then to Mum. Downstairs. Like she always has been. Whatever I might have thought.

Chapter Fifty-Four

KAT

THREE WEEKS LATER

I carefully place the book of fairy tales into the bag, where it rests on top of her clothes. I brush my fingers across it, its significance giving it a beauty I hadn’t seen before. I zip up the bag I’ve brought for her things, checking around her bed for anything I might have missed. ‘I think that’s everything.’‘Thanks,’ she says, her voice quiet in contemplation, but present at least, as it has been since we found her in the park, there being no need for her to hide her words any longer. ‘What time did James say he’d be here?’ I ask, checking my fob watch against the clock on the wall. ‘Two?’ Susan nods. I wonder how she feels, whether my nerves are only a slice of her own. I offered to go to her house with some food to fill her fridge, a few bits to make it feel less sterile when she got back. I was worried she’d walk in and the atmosphere, how she left things, would make it too hard to re-establish her life there.

‘I’m going to be okay,’ she says, pre-empting my thoughts, her voice small but not uncertain. I step around the bed and sit down carefully beside her. ‘Do you promise me?’ I ask, our shoulders just touching. ‘I promise,’ she says, looking me in the eye. ‘Life feels brighter when you begin to forgive yourself.’ I understand exactly what she means. A nurse brings James to her bed; Susan looks up at him and I’m sure I detect just a fleck of sadness in her eyes. Sadness that the man she loved is back in her life, but not there to stay? Maybe I’m overthinking it.

‘Come on, then,’ he says, taking her bag from me, hefting it up onto his shoulder and offering Susan his arm. ‘Time to go home.’ She reaches up, wincing slightly as she adjusts her balance and threads one arm through his, the other into her crutch.

They start to walk, slowly at first, until she finds her rhythm. I walk steadily behind them, feeling a sense of sadness myself. Patients come and go, but Susan was different somehow. ‘Would it be okay to call you, Susan?’ I ask, before she leaves the ward. ‘Maybe in a few days, just to see how you’re doing. You’ll be an outpatient now, but I’d like to…’ She nods, stopping me from having to explain why I’m not quite ready to let go of her.