She turned the TV on, volume high, to fill the house with the burble of voices while she cooked herself some dinner. Afterwards, she sat gingerly on the sofa, as if any sudden physical move might trigger a disintegration. She clicked on an old series of Frasier and found she could pretty much enjoy it, letting the episodes roll on, one after the other, lulled into a welcome stupor by the sitcom’s humour and goodwill.

A storm had gathered itself up since she’d been in the house and, over the sound of the TV, Paula heard the rain start to sluice down. She ran out into the front yard to rescue the paper tributes, tucking them under her shirt to bring inside. After wiping off the water droplets with a tea towel, she laid the letters and cardboard sheets on the kitchen table. Once they dried, she would slip them into plastic sleeves. It would be a sorrowful but satisfying task. It would be something, anyway.

Her hair and clothes were now quite wet—it was the kind of rain shower that soaked you through within minutes. In wet socks, she padded into the bathroom to towel her hair dry and it was then, in that undefended moment, thrown off her careful course by the sudden storm, that she was pierced by a memory.

‘Paula, can you come?’ The sound of Poppy’s voice calling out from the room she shared with Cameron. The little girl had just had a shower, her pyjamas slightly damp from the steamy bathroom, and she was rubbing her long hair dry with a towel.

‘Can you please get the knots out of my hair?’ Poppy asked, holding out a brush and a bottle of leave-in conditioner. ‘Mum’s gone to the shops and I can’t do the knots by myself.’

‘Oh sure,’ said Paula, but not feeling sure—she’d never de-knotted a child’s hair before.

Poppy plonked herself on the edge of the bed and flicked her hair back, trusting Paula could do this. Paula worked gently through each section of hair, trying not to tug too hard, while Poppy chattered on about a school excursion to the Maritime Museum. Once Paula was confident she wasn’t yanking Poppy’s scalp in a painful way, she enjoyed the ritual of it, the satisfaction of turning the tousled clumps of hair into a smooth, straight curtain down the girl’s back. She was moved that Poppy trusted her so simply, and she was struck by the intense sweetness of having a connection with a child who wasn’t her own, but a child she’d been given the chance to love.