When I arrived at the Radcliffe Infirmary, they told me he was gone.

Gone. I thought. It was wholly inadequate.

Gareth hauled a mattress up the narrow stairs to Lizzie’s room, and I slept there until the funeral. Lizzie collected what I needed from the house so I wouldn’t have to face its emptiness, but I couldn’t help thinking of her going from room to room, checking all was well. In my mind, I followed her from the front door, saw her collect the post and pause as she wondered what to do with it. I suspected she would protect me from whatever the letters might contain by leaving them on the hall table.

I didn’t want to go any further, but Lizzie, I knew, would pop her head into the sitting room, then the dining room that we never used. She would walk through to the kitchen and wash the dirty dishes. She would test that the windows were firmly shut and check the locks on every door. Then she would put her hand on the banister at the bottom of the stairs and cast her eyes to the top. She would take a deep breath and begin her ascent. She got a little heavier every year, and this had become her habit. I’d seen it a thousand times as I followed her up her own staircase.

I wanted it to stop, but I had no more control of my thoughts than of the weather. I imagined her searching my wardrobe for a black dress, and my weeping began. Then I remembered the roses beside Da’s bed. Lizzie would find them drooping. She’d pick up the vase to take it downstairs, and she’d wonder whether Da had had the pleasure of seeing them at their best before he was taken to the Radcliffe.

I wanted the flowers to stay. Not to rot, but to stay, slightly wilting, for eternity.