She groaned and sat up. She rubbed at her eyes with the knuckles of her right hand and the pain in them reminded her of the beating she’d inflicted on Vernon Moore. She saw again the face of the old man, the collision of her boots into his ribs. The way he’d breathed as he’d walked up the steps of his house.

She looked at Roger again. Then at their bedroom. The money hadn’t improved their lot that much. Their house was maybe a bit better than those surrounding it, but that was all.

But she knew it wasn’t money that had driven her. It wasn’t her husband on his stomach before her, still sleeping. It would be easy to blame him, and sure, he’d definitely pushed her, but the decision had been her own. All the decisions had been, hadn’t they?

Nor could she blame her father. Her mother’s justification of her father, her excusing him, made her realise her mother believed all decisions had already been made for her. All of them. And were she to decide a different course of action—maybe she didn’t like being beaten, living in fear—nothing would happen. Even when she wanted to change her world it would remain, stubborn. And, just like the blood leaking from Daisy, Sharon’s willpower had soaked into the soil. Forgotten, like her mother’s. This moment and so many like it had enforced within her this idea: I have no impact on the world.

But this wasn’t true.

She’d gone too far with Vernon. Way too far. And she was the one who had done it. Not Ernie, or Dad, or Roger, or Peter. It had been her. Ernie had told her what to do and she had listened. She had listened.

The telephone rang, shaking her from her thoughts. She quickly put her slippers on and walked to the kitchen. She answered it on the fifth ring.

‘Hello, Sharon speaking.’

There was a sniffling on the other end. ‘Oh, hi, Mrs Wornkin,’ Cassie said. ‘Is Pete awake?’ Her voice sounded weak.

‘He’s a teenager, sweetheart, he’s not normally up until nine at best.’

Cassie sniffed again on the other end. ‘Is everything alright?’ Sharon asked.

It took Cassie a while to speak again. Sharon held the phone tight to her ear. ‘Our shed was on fire and Dad tried to put it out and . . . and he got burned.’

Sharon’s breathing quickened. ‘How burned?’

‘Like . . . all over.’

‘Are you at the hospital?’

Sounding almost like a child: ‘Is Pete there?’

‘Is Ernie alright?’

Cassie sniffed. ‘They say he’ll be okay. But they’d say that, wouldn’t they?’

‘Sweetheart, I think doctors’ll tell you the truth. Especially—’

‘He’s in surgery—Mum?’ The sound of Cassie’s muffled voice, and in the background the sound of machinery beeping. ‘Yeah,’ Cassie said to Sharon, ‘he’s in surgery now for skin grafts. But they said he’ll be alright.’

‘Who else is there?’

‘Just us,’ she said. ‘Mrs Wornkin, please, is Pete there? Can I speak to him?’