‘Ah, Hanna, you’re back,’ one of them said from the far side of the bed, and Bell recognized the woman’s voice from the phone call yesterday. Dr Sorensen. Her voice had a pointed quality to it, as though her words carried hidden meaning.

The door closed, clamping down on any leaky audio from the outside world, hermetically sealing them in a pristine environment. Bell hung back against the wall, casting a curious gaze around the room and immediately feeling her own past reattach to her with sticky fingers. She was, sadly, no stranger to hospital rooms, but this was unlike any she had ever seen. She could still see at night, when she closed her eyes, the metal bed frames, the linoleum floor, the smell of antiseptic, the blue-tinged strip lights. But in here, there were framed photographs on a cabinet by the bed, expensive bed linen with a camel-coloured Hermes ‘H’ cashmere blanket, a potted weeping fig tree in one corner, a comfortable red linen armchair, and artwork on the walls that looked like it required insurance certificates. Was this the reality of long-term care? Personalize the environment in case he wakes up, disoriented, confused? She would have been overjoyed if this was her bedroom, full stop, much less in a hospital.

Hanna and Linus were standing by the bed, the doctors flanking them like bodyguards so that all she could see was the line of a leg beneath a sheet, a glimpse of an almost-shaved head, dark stubble grazing the shockingly white scalp. She saw the head move as the doctor in charge touched his arm – responsive, alert, functions which had seemingly been impossible even the day before yesterday.

‘I’ve brought a special visitor for you,’ she heard Hanna say, also in an altered voice. ‘Do you remember I said I would bring someone very special?’

On cue, Linus took a micro-step forward. His head was dipped and even from behind, Bell could see he was feeling shy and reluctant.

A silence billowed through the room, punctuated only by the rhythmic beat of machines monitoring his blood pressure, oxygen saturation levels . . . One of them started flashing, and the nearest doctor turned and began pressing buttons.

In the gap that opened up, Bell saw his profile. He was staring back at his son with a blank look, his skin pallid, the bony nub of his shoulders smooth beneath his hospital gown. She felt herself recoil. He was awake and he was alive, but he was not living. Not yet. His was a body that hadn’t seen daylight in seven years, skin that hadn’t felt sunshine or a cold breeze in almost a decade. For all those years, he had hovered in the realm of the unconscious, with only a hair’s breadth between the sleeping and the dead.

By contrast, Linus was overstuffed with life force – radiant and rosy, glossy and glowing from his run in the park. His curls shone like golden leaves, and there was something about the outward curve of his plump cheeks that seemed a rebuke to the sunken dip of his father’s. There was no mirror in the room, but his father’s hand must have travelled upon his face; he surely knew the hard shapes he made in that bed.