Sara became aware of the air around her, the pressure and weight of it, and the bar of sunlight that cut through the glass panel in the door to fall on her skin. The heat of it. She inhaled, her lungs filling, and reached out a hand to steady herself against the wall. Her heart rate accelerated and she felt her pulse in her throat, resonating up through her head.

She recognised this sensation, the alignment of time and reality. It had come upon her once before, and she had drowned it with sleeping pills.

“You all right?”

Francie’s voice startled her. He stood in the kitchen doorway, watching her.

She had to force the words out of her mouth.

“I’m fine,” she said. “A bit dizzy, that’s all.”

Francie grunted, nodded, and returned to the kitchen.

Sara inhaled through her nose, exhaled through her mouth, deep breaths until her heart rate slowed. Balance restored, she brought the bucket and mop to the small bathroom off the back hall and emptied the dirty water into the toilet. When she returned to the kitchen, Francie sat on one of the stools at the island, nursing his mug of tea. He hadn’t made one for her.

“I’m fine,” Sara said again, without being asked.

Francie looked at her over his steaming tea. “Mm-hm.”

“Did Damien call you?” she asked.

“Aye,” he said. “Crazy woman.”

Sara stood at the far end of the island, blocking his view of the window. “She said this was her house.”

“Mm-hm?” he said.

“Was it?”

His shoulders slumped as if he were dealing with a child who had asked one question too many. “She started a fire. Lucky to get out alive. The local health trust ruled she wasn’t fit to look after herself. She was put in that care home on the other side of Morganstown. The house had to be sold to pay for it.”

“Why didn’t you tell us that?”

“I told Damien.”

“He didn’t tell me.”

Francie set down his tea. “Look, don’t you worry about it. Happens all the time, people losing their homes like that. If I hadn’t bought this house, someone else would’ve. Worse than that, another developer probably would’ve took a bulldozer to the place and put up a dozen three- and four-bedroom houses. Isn’t it better it was left standing so a family could make a home of it?”

“I’d just like to have been told, that’s all,” she said.

“I told Damien,” he repeated.

“She kept talking about children. She asked where they were.”

“She didn’t have any children, unless you count all the cats she had about the place. Maybe that’s what she meant. God knows how many of the bloody things she had. Look, she’s just a crazy old woman. Don’t worry yourself about it.”