No, no, no. I would have known. My eyes roam her face, searching for some chink in her act. All I see is her white skin and jutting bones. She is sick. Cancer. Fear wells from my chest, like nothing I’ve ever felt before. “Are you going to die?”

“The doctors are doing everything they can to help me.”

I don’t like her answer. I didn’t hear the word no. My face collapses and she pulls me into a hug. “It’s okay, Kate. We’re going to stick together. Get through this.”

“When did . . . ?”

“I was diagnosed at the beginning of April. Nick was the only one who knew, and I wanted to keep it that way as long as possible.”

“You should have told me!”

She says nothing and I feel horrible for shouting at her. I want to yell at someone, though. Want to hit something solid and knuckle-crushing.

“You’re going to get better, aren’t you?”

“I’m on drugs to slow the progress of the disease.” There it is once more: the non-answer. Some distant part of me is gathering up all these non-answers and rearranging them into what I want to hear. “If they don’t work, I might have to have some chemo. Possibly a stem-cell transplant. I’m staying positive, Kate, and you should too.”

I hug her tighter, craving the lily smell of the perfume Auntie Rach bought her, even the cling of cigarettes. Then I pull back, blinking at her stained T-shirt. Déjà vu returning.

She follows my gaze. “Sorry if the nosebleed alarmed you, love. I’m getting used to them now. The illness makes me bleed and bruise really easily. And this crappy tiredness . . . It’s a relief to tell you, really. I don’t know how much longer I could’ve covered it up, especially now Nick’s gone.”

My heart batters my ribs. Realizations are stirring, half forming.

Mum studies me as if she can see what I’m thinking. “I know you picked up on the tense atmosphere sometimes,” she says. “It’s been so tough, dealing with the symptoms, the appointments, the decisions about treatment . . . I wouldn’t have blamed Nick if he’d backed away completely, but he never did . . . and he respected my decision not to tell you, even though he felt pretty strongly you ought to know. We argued about it a lot. And maybe he was right after all.”

I press my hands to my mouth, tasting salt on my skin.

All this time she was being attacked by something I couldn’t save her from. And I still can’t.

As we fall quiet, listening to the buzz of the fridge that still threatens to clap out any moment, more realizations move through me. I can’t fend them off now: They just keep coming, like waves of heat and ice.