Eventually, I got on to a bus and allowed myself to be ferried away. Tears ran down my face. The rain beat against the window of the bus, the top deck of which was strangely empty.

I let my phone vibrate, and vibrate again.

The more it vibrated, the more certain I was.

No one had tried to contact me with such urgency for ages. There was only one possibility, one reason why anyone would be so desperate to contact me.

I listened to the last message. It was my mother. She asked me not to listen to the earlier messages and to meet her at the hospital as soon as I could. Her voice was trembling. She’d been crying. There were four earlier messages: three from my mother, and another from a number I knew only too well – the intensive-care unit at the Robert Debré Hospital.

I followed my mother’s advice. I switched off my phone and put it away.

I took Louis’s notebook out of my bag and caressed it. Pressed it to my shattered heart. I turned the pages, one at a time, slowly. Until I reached the last one. I read what my son was asking me to do. The rain was bucketing down, now. I couldn’t hold back the words that formed unaided in my mind. The last page. His last wishes.

I stood up. I gave my telephone to a young woman sitting near me. Slightly confused, she thanked me.

Then I got off the bus.

22

Day 1

Avoidance

I didn’t call my mother back. I didn’t call the hospital back.

As long as I hadn’t been given the grim official news, Louis was alive. I decided to do the thing I knew how to do best: avoid.

I could see now with painful clarity how I’ve always been the queen of avoidance. When a situation gets tricky, my natural instinct is to run away. It was my spontaneous reaction. My way of protecting myself from gusts of wind, typhoons and cyclones. The stronger the wind, the stronger my urge to retreat. I need to build myself a temporary shelter to help me weather it. I’m not able to put out to sea in a storm. The swell has to subside a little. I’ve always been panic stricken at the thought of letting others read my feelings, especially when I’m not in control of them. That’s when I resorted to avoidance. I avoided Matthew thirteen years ago, via a simple text message. I avoided Matthew a few hours ago, rather than allow myself to be overwhelmed. I avoided my mother, all those years. I’ve avoided my life and, in fulfilling Louis’s dreams, I’d avoided my own.

Within hours of the end of the countdown, I’d avoided my son’s death by inventing a future.

Avoidance is so much better than the truth.