He had ruined it for me; the magic was gone.

I had never looked at the skies again, until now.

During that small, seemingly insignificant episode that lasted no longer than a few minutes, my mother had been elsewhere.

Like she always was.

I closed my eyes and remembered her. I thought of what she could have been.

Upstairs, Carl hadn’t moved. He didn’t look at my mother. He scratched at the side of his face and I heard his long nails as they rubbed over the coarse unshaven hair on his cheeks. He needed the stuff.

‘Do you want me to…?’ I trailed off, holding up the syringe I had prepared.

His dark eyes flashed briefly, and he stretched out his arm.

I shook my head and gestured. ‘No, that one.’

He looked at his tattoo. ‘It’s got scar tissue. I had an accident; it’s why I got the tat, to cover it, see? It’s not as good for me in that arm. It’s not got as much sensitivity.’

I listened to him prattling on. It was the most he’d ever spoken to me since the Heaven’s Gate conversation. Like now, that too had been one-sided. Outwardly, I nodded, but inwardly, I seethed. My mother’s dead body was two feet away, and still it was all about him. As if sensing what I was thinking, he stopped talking and rested his arm on a pillow.

It was strange to touch that mottled, patterned limb. Up close, the scar tissue was clear to see and feel.

Deftly and with such efficiency you would have thought I was a user myself, I wrapped my old belt around the top of his arm. I lifted the end close to his wet mouth.

‘Hold it,’ I instructed.

He did as I asked, biting down on it.

I waited until the veins stood up. I pushed the needle in at an angle.

He watched me, half smiling, his inflated ego apparent on his face. He thought he had me. An easy replacement for my mother. The arrogance. The self-entitled nature of this beast.

As the liquid flowed into him, I saw the moment of change. His eyes widened to large black pools, and for the first time, the only time, the last time ever, I saw fear in them. He knew what I had done; he knew I’d massively overused the fentanyl.

His lower lip trembled, and with all the strength left in him, he ripped his arm from my grasp. His face was a world of shock, of horror and disbelief.

I had hurt his feelings. I uttered a laugh, but it was shaky, bordering on hysterical.

‘Why?’ he bleated, and his words trickled away to a whisper.

I glanced at my mother, at the mess he had made of her over the years. That was why.