Walking onto the ward, Jess feels hope burning in her chest, the same hope she has every time she comes to visit: that perhaps today they will discover that a full recovery has been made and that everything can go back to normal.

And then they are there, standing at the end of the bed, looking down at a body so familiar and yet so disturbingly changed that Jess has to fight the urge to scrunch her eyes shut: sallow skin, closed eyes, bones rising from hollow cheeks to greet them. Hope plummets in Jess’s stomach, the muscles in her tummy shriveling to greet it.

It is the tubes that distress her every time. One tube in the nose, the very thought of which makes Jess want to gag. Another tube in the back of the hand, which makes Jess scratch herself as though it is her own flesh that is being pierced. A third tube emerges from underneath the sheets into a see-through bag of mustard-yellow liquid that Jess knows is darker than it ought to be and which she would rather not think about at all.

As Jess stands by the bed, trying to remember what the face in front of her looked like before the flesh began to melt away from the body, before the bones jutted out from beneath the skin, she thinks about all the weeks they have been going through this cycle of hospital admissions, temporary recoveries, discharges back home. This carousel of fear, limbo, and relief that has become the emotional rhythm by which they live their lives.

Mostly what Jess thinks, as she stands at the foot of the hospital bed, is that if only life can go back to normal she will never ask for anything again.

Then the sunken eyes flutter open and a face Jess loves more than any other in the world smiles at her and she feels, all at once, that her prayers are being answered.

Chapter 10

Jess

Jess snapped the sun visor shut, got out of the car, and ran into the building, following black-and-white signs up the stairs to a large square room that might have seemed welcoming were it not for the metal bars across the windows. Inside, her mum stood by a piano next to a tall, curly-haired man about the same age as Jess in the otherwise empty room.

“I’m sorry I’m so late, Mum. The shoot ran on forever and when we finally wrapped, the owner of the house accused us of scratching the floorboards in the hallway, which I knew for a fact we hadn’t, but it took ages to find the photographs I’d taken on reconnaissance to prove him wrong. I’m really sorry.” Her voice was breathless and she could hear herself rambling.

“Don’t worry, darling. You should have let me get a cab. Anyway, Ben’s been keeping me entertained with stories of his various travels. Ben, this is my younger daughter, Jess. Jess, this is Ben, who’s running the choir.”