She thinks about how she has watched Zoe accept this most ignominious of side effects. She has observed the stoic resignation that has followed the flash of panic as Zoe has raised her head from her pillow in the morning to find it covered with hair no longer attached to her head. She has seen, through a gap in the bathroom door, Zoe run a brush through her hair and stare with disbelief and distress at the contents in the bristles after each stroke. On better days, during better weeks, Audrey has accompanied Zoe through the fabric department at John Lewis, picking out material to fashion into headscarves, watching Zoe smile reassuringly at shop assistants in response to their expressions of shocked, uncomfortable sympathy.

Now only a few stubborn tufts of Zoe’s hair remain.

Audrey has an envelope of Zoe’s hair at home, tucked away in a wooden box at the bottom of her wardrobe. She cannot let Edward know it is there: he thinks it ghoulish, macabre.

There have been days when Audrey has felt chastened by Zoe’s courage, days when she has watched her laughing at a nurse’s jokes even as a needle pierces her skin, days when Zoe has smiled to greet the doctor who will be prodding her for the next half an hour, days when she has nodded to reassure Audrey that she is OK as she lies down on a gurney for yet another biopsy. There have been days during which Audrey has watched the suffering, pain, indignity and distress of her little girl and felt an impotent fury that she is unable to stop it. There have been many days when Audrey has silently raged against her own powerlessness.

She places the star-wrapped present on the beige chest of drawers next to the Walkman and a selection of Zoe’s favorite cassettes: audiobooks of I Capture the Castle, Little Women, Roald Dahl, and Shirley Hughes. On top lies the tattered copy of Ballet Shoes that Jess often reads aloud when they arrive to find Zoe awake. The twins know the story of Pauline, Petrova, and Posy almost off by heart and they seem to find an unspoken comfort in it, as though time has reversed to the Christmas three years ago when Audrey first gave it to Zoe. Reading Noel Streatfeild, it is as if time has been paused in 1985 and they do not have to acknowledge what the future will bring.

Over the past few weeks, Audrey has watched Zoe grow weaker day by day. She has witnessed the tiny portions of food and water shrink even further, felt the heaviness of Zoe’s head as she has lifted it to plump her damp pillow. She has watched the life begin to seep from Zoe’s body, watched the light dim behind her eyes. Some days she feels as though she is watching her daughter slowly disappear, like some terrible, long-drawn-out magic trick, and there is nothing she can do to stop it.

She thinks about the doctor’s kindness when she and Edward had sat in his office six days ago: a compassionate elderly man who seemed to have the loss of every patient etched into the lines around his eyes. She remembers his gentle tone—almost a whisper, as if he knew the world wasn’t yet ready for what he had to say—as he had told them there was nothing more to be done. Recalling the conversation now, Audrey can feel the air leaking out of her, like a badly tied balloon, just as it had as she’d sat on a high-backed melamine chair, wishing her legs would carry her out of his office so that she didn’t have to listen to what he was saying. She hears his voice in her head, talking through their options: keep Zoe in the hospital; move her to a hospice; take her home. Three separate options, each with the same outcome: Zoe is going to die.