Vanessa launched herself from the chair, kneeled down on the floor in front of her mom and gently hugged her. She could feel her bones through her top. How could she not of noticed this before? She hugged her mom every time she picked up the boys. She hadn’t noticed because she was too busy. The realization hit her quickly and made her cry out.

‘It’s OK, honey, let it out. I did. It took me weeks to come to grips with this. With dying.’

Vanessa couldn’t believe they were even talking about this, let alone that it was actually going to happen. She stood up and looked down at her dad. His eyes were glistening with unshed tears. ‘Daddy,’ she said. He stood and stretched out his arms so Vanessa could step into them. He wrapped his strong and familiar arms around her. Oh, how she’d missed this. He looked as distraught as she felt and she realized that he’d aged too, no doubt since his wife’s diagnosis. Her mom was her best friend, besides Wren. What was she, her daughter, going to do without her? What was her husband of thirty-odd years going to do? He must be so lost, but he hid it well. For her mom’s benefit, no doubt.

Her mom, Claire Elliott, died nearly six months later to the day, on a Thursday, at home, surrounded by those she loved and cared for the most. She slipped away peacefully in the bed that she shared with her husband Alex while holding onto her husband’s and Vanessa’s hands. Wren was crying, Ty looked confused and even Billy, stoic Billy, had tears in his eyes. Vanessa shed many tears that day. Every time she thought of a memory, surrounded by her things, she thought of her mom. She was in or the cause of so many of the good things in Vanessa’s life. She had whispered, ‘I love you’ before she had passed, for she did love each and every one of them and they all knew it. Vanessa had smoothed back her hair, kissing her mother’s forehead. ‘I love you too, Mom.’ She had embraced her dad, the ferocity of his hug telling her how much he was hurting.

Vanessa didn’t know what to do with herself, so she rearranged the flowers on the front hall table for what felt like the hundredth time.

‘Ness,’ said her dad, nearly making her jump through the roof with stress. ‘Come and sit down, the flowers are perfect – she would have loved them.’ He led her to a vacant seat.

Six short months ago her mom had been alive, now she was lying in a mahogany box at some funeral home waiting to be cremated. One night when she couldn’t sleep, Vanessa had researched cremation. After they’d been cremated, the thigh bones often didn’t burn through completely, so they smashed them up with what amounted to a hammer of sorts. Surely that was a fake website and they really didn’t do that? After that disturbing discovery, she had closed the browser and deleted her history lest one of the boys opened her laptop and looked at what she was searching for.