Nic goes to the kitchen and opens the second drawer and immediately sees the lone pair of scissors lying between the lone sticky-tape dispenser and the lone tightly wound ball of packing string. The scissors are sharp and precise and the lining comes away from the envelope beautifully. It is a small work of art: cross-hatched navy blue against a paler blue background. She is sure—if her memory serves her correctly and it usually does—that she has seen and not bothered to keep envelope linings printed with tiny flowers, with noughts-and-crosses, with diamonds, with wavy and straight lines intersecting. If you could collect enough of these tiny works of art you could make a … a … a … a … mosaic! A mosaic, yes.

She will need some wallpaper glue. Or will that be too heavy for the delicate square fluttering so prettily in her right hand? She takes out her phone, googles making a paper mosaic, makes a list of items to buy, feels swollen with hope.

Walking to the shops takes twice as long as before the accident, but it barely hurts anymore. As she passes the neighbour’s house she notes with satisfaction that the three fancypants cars out the front—the cars Will reckons are together worth as much as her house—each have a perfect row of muddy paw prints across their bonnets. It brightens her day to see them, truly.

Nearing the shopping centre her excitement builds and she wonders how long it will take to make a good, wall-hanging-sized mosaic artwork given how little official mail she receives each month. Lena, bossy as ever, signed her up for emailed bills for the phone and electricity. ‘No point bringing extra paper into the house and it’s less likely you’ll put them aside and forget to pay. Just click through when it comes and it’ll be paid in seconds.’ Nic wanted to tell her that she never forgot to pay her bills, not once, but she was trying this thing Will suggested of letting the past be past and only arguing if it was to help create a better future.

But now she thinks of it, the lack of mail doesn’t matter, because if you walk through the fire escape next to Target and pass the three doors on your right and then push through the sticky, dirt-speckled, heavy plastic doors leading to Dock 5 and follow the trail of cigarette butts along the wall to your left you’ll come to the paper and cardboard recycling bin. As big as the regular rubbish skip but nowhere near as stinking, and although it would be impossible to find individual envelopes in among the large slabs of packing cardboard and broken-up boxes, it happened that most of the occupants of the centre used cardboard boxes as recycling bins for their office papers which they would drop directly into the skip rather than bother to empty.