The position of the table was perfect but its emptiness was not. She grabbed the plastic Monstera from the bathroom, giving the table a sense of purpose and the girl something green to look at. The Monstera had been a gift from the receptionist at the medical centre who had seen Nic admiring it and said she should take it as it was being chucked out later that week when they refurbished the office. That receptionist had left years ago and been replaced by someone less friendly and observant, but every time Nic passed the Monstera she felt the woman’s warmth and thoughtfulness.

The plant, the girl with the rose, the easel, the table. All gone. Not as bad as you think, her nephew said.

She drifts into a druggy sleep, wakes to the golden late-afternoon light and doesn’t see, on her bedside table, the cherry-sized lump of blu-tack she has opened her eyes to for over a decade. Dried out, sandy-textured, barely stuck to the surface, but at the same time always the fresh, minty-blue strip from when Lena was six and had a habit of tapping her tiny fingers on the desk during class. Another child had told her to STOP IT, LENA and the teacher had repeated the order, though more gently; it was distracting the other children. Lena’s fingers tapped Nic’s arm as she told the story. No rhythm to it, index and pinkie and ring and pointer and thumb playing over her skin in a different order each time. Mummy told her to squeeze her hands into fists instead of tapping. Mummy didn’t understand that moving her hands helped her to concentrate and sit still.

Nic spotted the new packet of blu-tack on the coffee table. She had bought it to replace the old pack, which she had used up the week before putting another of Lena’s drawings on the wall of her room. She opened it, stripped a full piece off its white paper dressing, balled it up and handed it to Lena, who understood immediately what it was for. Her stubby fingers pressed and kneaded, the crease between her eyebrows eased and then disappeared. Listen, she said, and Nic did and smiled, because it was silent, or close enough.

Michelle called the next night. Another child had loudly accused Lena of being a thief, of taking blu-tack from the teacher’s desk. The teacher called Michelle, stressed that she wasn’t concerned about the value of what may or may not have been taken, only that Lena may or may not have been sneaking around and going through her desk and could Michelle please talk to her daughter about whether she did or did not do this thing that—let me stress—is not about the blu-tack itself but about a possible issue with sneakiness and lying.