Bonnie stopped as her tears hit the page, the ink below them smudging as she wiped a hasty finger across the paper. It was hard, reliving all of this, trying to get back inside her mind as it was then. She recalled how happy she had been when she discovered she was expecting Tui, and how that initial euphoria had been tempered by an almost immediate redoubling of guilt. Tui was wanted from the moment of her conception, and that love which burned like an insistent flame within Bonnie had only grown in size and ferocity since. She knew that she loved Evangeline just as much, but it was a more confusing type of love. Because while Bonnie did not know her firstborn daughter, Evangeline was still part of her. For a long time now, that had been enough, but now Bonnie wanted more. She needed her daughter to know her, and to know Tui as well.

30

The strangest thing happened when I woke up this morning – I felt happy.

Not the shiny-new-coin type of happy, but I do feel lighter somehow, as if something has lifted off my shoulders for good this time. And, in the spirit of lightening the load, I have decided that it is finally time to get my hair cut.

‘It’s a lot to take off – are you absolutely sure?’

The young stylist is standing behind me, scissors raised, and our eyes lock in the mirror.

‘Very sure,’ I tell her. ‘It’s only hair, right? It’ll grow back.’

‘It’s the most hair I’ve ever seen,’ she admits, but it’s obvious that she’s more excited than concerned.

‘It’s time,’ I say simply, because it is. I have kept on growing my hair for years now because Anna loved it so much, but since she died, all it’s really become is a reminder that I have lost her – and a big, heavy, difficult-to-dry one at that. Very soon it will be long enough to sit on, and being here in the heat has made me realise how completely ridiculous that is. Even Anna would agree – I’m sure of it. She would probably laugh at me for letting it get this straggly in the first place.

‘Are you ready?’

The hairdresser is poised to cut, my curtain of dark locks draped over one of her arms.

‘Do it!’ I urge her, then shut my eyes as she begins, relishing the sound of the blades as they saw through the strands, slicing and snipping and freeing me of all that weight.

Just as I did as soon as I woke up this morning, I smile.

‘You’ve cut your hair.’

Kit looks so surprised that for a moment I falter, bringing my hand up to self-consciously pull at the chin-length strands.

‘Not me – a hairdresser did it.’