Lynda dropped to her knees beside him and patted his arm. ‘Sweetheart, there’s nothing to be sorry about. I can’t imagine how you’re feeling.’ She paused and Zara could see a look of indecision on her face. ‘Will, honey, maybe we could ask that counsellor we met at the hospital to come out. He said that anger and frustration and fear are all normal. And there’s help …’

Will shook his head. ‘I don’t need any help. What’s the point? That I learn to accept what’s happening? By the time I do that, I’ll have been in my grave for years. The freaking counsellor can’t help me deal with what I’m facing.’ He leaned back into his pillows. ‘God knows, there’s nothing good that comes out of having terminal cancer.’ He was silent and it seemed to Zara that they had all run out of words.

She sat down on the end of the bed as Lynda continued to pat Will’s arm.

‘We don’t want to interfere,’ Zara said softly. ‘We just want to make this as easy as we can for you. I’m sorry if you think we’re fussing. We don’t like seeing you in pain.’

‘It’s only going to get worse,’ Will admitted. ‘I didn’t tell you that, but the oncologist warned me on the last visit. I’ll stick it out for as long as I can and then …’ His voice trailed off and he took a shaky breath. ‘This will sound odd, but I like it.’

Zara was burning to ask why, but she took her lead from her mum and stayed silent.

‘If I can feel it, I’m still alive.’

Lynda dropped at the kitchen table and put her head in her hands. ‘I want to cry, but I don’t have the energy or the tears,’ she said.

Zara sat down beside her and put her hand on her arm, realising again that it was a good time to stay quiet.

The ticking clock was the only thing that made any noise and it seemed too loud in the silence.

‘He’s not the only one asking why,’ her mum finally said. ‘I do it too, every second of the day.’

‘Me too,’ Zara admitted. ‘I can’t understand why he stopped the chemo. It feels like he’s giving up.’

‘Oh, sweetie, that bit I do get. Another question I ask all the time is why he got the cancer in the first place. One night I googled the causes of bowel cancer. To see whether it was something I’d done or given him to eat. The website I looked at said there’s often a family history of bowel cancer, but there’s none in either of our families that I know about. But there’s the red meat we eat and the beer he drinks. Drank.’

‘Mum, you can’t do that. You’ll go insane! It doesn’t matter what caused the cancer. It’s there. Knowing what caused it won’t change that. And I’ve never known Dr Google to be failsafe.’