Now, it seemed, they’d been wrong. They’d been sober this time and maybe there was no real connection between the blackouts and the drinking, maybe they were random and would continue to happen. So, what was the use of not drinking? And wouldn’t a drink make it all feel better?

She opened her eyes, looked at the ceiling and then shut her eyes tight again and tried to make it happen, but it wasn’t going to. It was the dizziness and the hunger that did it. Gave her the impression that if she just tried enough, she could make it happen again, so there’d be two of them again.

A negative version of the sunlight in the windows projected onto her eyelids and for a moment she could feel them both in the bed. The bed gave a little with the weight of them both and she could feel warmth in the top of her arm, and she opened her eyes in surprise, in hope, but there was only space.

She remembered there was bread in the fridge that she’d brought home from her going-away barbecue last night. Soft and white – not like they normally ate. Also tomatoes, and she could either eat the bread fresh and soft or toast it. Or she could do both and have a selection.

She rolled out of bed and onto her knees, like they did in the old days, and prayed. Words she’d been taught, and then, quietly, ‘Take me,’ then, ‘Or fix this.’ She cried and lay on the floor on her side with her eyes open, looking under the bed, and then she saw something. She reached out. It was a long way from her, and she had to stretch. Once she had it in her hand, she looked at it. It was a phone she’d never seen before. She pushed the power button and some black pixels played on the small grey screen and were gone. She pushed the power button again and nothing happened. She was sitting up now. She looked behind her, like there was someone there. Like someone was watching her, or at least with her in the room. She looked at the phone again – she was sure it was a phone.