Marie was devastated, of course. I believe she genuinely knew nothing of her husband’s perversions. She has finally taken her wedding ring off and reverted to her maiden name.

As for Joe, his remains were exhumed and he was buried, alone, in a plot further down the cemetery. I’m not even sure where his plot is, but that’s fine by me. I have no desire to visit his grave. I think he’ll have a lonely rest there.

Me? I’m determined to move on. Ciara is, too. The house is on the market. There have been a few offers. Young families looking for a place to build happy memories. It will be gone soon and I hope all those painful memories with it.

The rest of our life awaits. Alex stirs in his sleep, turns over and wraps his arm around me. I feel secure. I feel loved.

I feel free.

Epilogue

Kathleen

Then

I didn’t like seeing my big brother look so weak. So pathetic. So scared. It was so unlike Joe. Normally he was this larger-than-life character, full of self-confidence. Sometimes he was too full of self-confidence, but we all had our faults.

Joe had always had a swagger about him. A sense that he was destined for bigger things. The first in our family to stay on at school past sixteen, he’d been determined to rise above the fairly basic working-class lifestyle he’d grown up with.

Joe knew things – all the facts in the world. I could listen to him tell me stories about far-flung countries and exotic insects, the great battles in the history, the Greek myths; his knowledge seemed endless.

Being nine years younger than him, I had hero-worshipped him. Loved it when he took me out on the back of his bike to meet his friends. He never saw me as the annoying little sister – not the way my friends’ brothers saw them. And he always bought me sweets. A quarter of cola cubes in a white paper bag. I just had to give him the first one, to make sure it wasn’t poisoned, he’d say.

Now he was in pain, pale, and his mood was dipping day by day.

‘I’m scared,’ he’d told me as I sat holding his hand at his bedside.

‘What of?’ I asked. ‘We’ll take care of you, I promise.’

‘I’m not scared of dying,’ he said, ‘or even the pain that might come with it. I’m scared of what happens after.’

It wasn’t something I wanted to think about too much. I think I was still in denial about his illness. Just the day before, I’d wept in Dr Sweeney’s office, told him the thought of seeing Joe suffer and die was almost more than I could take. I couldn’t even think about after.

‘We’ll take care of you then, too,’ I said, gently rubbing his hand. ‘We’ll do right by you.’ I couldn’t hold back my tears, but nor could Joe.

‘I don’t mean like that,’ he’d said. ‘I mean the afterlife. Where I go. My soul, you know.’