‘And tell me, Eliza, are you still painting?’ Caroline asked. ‘That used to give you great solace.’

Eliza shook her head. She’d stopped in the past year or so, after her work with Gillian became more intense, the hours even longer. Her painting items – the small canvases, the paints, the brushes – had sat on the table in her flat unused for weeks. Eventually, she had packed them away rather than constantly feel guilty seeing them there.

She had always loved painting, even as a child. Her mother had encouraged her, always making sure she had paper and paints, no matter how cheaply made they were. After that terrible night, after she’d moved to Melbourne and started uni, it was painting that helped keep her afloat. Night after night, rather than meet the other students down at the campus bars, she sat at the desk in her room. Her subjects were always the same four items. The tall green vase and the three coloured bowls that had belonged to her mother. She rearranged them into different configurations or with different light falling on them. She painted them so she could imagine her mother’s praise.

‘Eliza, they’re gorgeous! You’ve got the colours exactly right. Can you please do me another one?’

She re-used each canvas, many times. She discovered that for the hour or so it took her to do each painting she would become so absorbed, be concentrating so intensely on getting just the right shade of green, red, blue or yellow, that her mind would become still. For a short time, she could forget Jeannie was gone. Forget that she’d never hear her voice again.

At uni, she’d kept her painting secret. It was only several years after they graduated that Rose saw any of her artwork. On a rare trip to Melbourne, she’d surprised Eliza with a visit to her apartment.

A half-finished still life of the vase and one of the bowls had been drying on the table. She hadn’t had time to hide it.

‘Eliza, that’s beautiful!’ Rose said. ‘I can’t even draw stick figures. I didn’t know you were so artistic.’

Eliza batted away the compliment. Rose was undeterred. Ever since, she’d constantly encouraged Eliza, often giving her unexpected parcels of paints, or small canvases. ‘Just in case you get the urge,’ she’d say.

Her counsellor didn’t tell her to start painting again. She never issued instructions. She let Eliza talk. Listened as she came to the realisation herself that it might be good for her to start painting again, when she got back from Scotland.

Eliza noticed Caroline’s subtle glance at the clock. Their session was coming to a close. She needed to discuss one more thing. About her decision to finally ask her godmothers about her father. About her mother’s family. Was there something wrong with her, that it had taken her this long to want to talk to them about it all?

There was nothing wrong with her, Caroline reassured her. There wasn’t one right way of coming to terms with all that had happened to her.