But she charges on. ‘Everything has been finalised and paid for. It’s all quite simple and straightforward. There’s a poem in there that I’d like read. My mum had it at hers and then Miranda had it too.’ Her heart squeezes as she immediately remembers standing at her mum’s funeral, her sweaty hand in Miranda’s as the unforgiving summer sun blazed down. Then, years later, at Miranda’s funeral, a cool autumn day where the wind had slashed the air. But she only takes a moment to pause, knowing such silence will bring with it tears. ‘You can read it, but if it’s too much Barbara from the funeral home will do it. She knows the situation. You’ll just need to contact them to organise a date after I …’ She chokes, the word catching before it reaches her mouth.

Ty’s eyes glaze over with tears. ‘Don’t say it, Penny. We don’t need to talk about it yet.’

She wishes she didn’t have to talk about it, but the end is closing in on them. ‘It’s important to me that you know what I want.’

He shuts his eyes, gaining strength before nodding at this. ‘Okay.’

So they sit there, Penny leaning her head back against his chest as she gets him to open the folder, pointing out the details, letting him read the poem, explaining how she wants the funeral to proceed. She can hear his heart beating and wishes hers would beat alongside his forever, but she knows this is a wish only a genie would be able to grant. As the pain from her cancer increases, so will the morphine, and then it will only be a matter of time.

‘No music at all?’

She shakes her head. ‘It’s too sad. Music makes everything so much worse.’

‘It’s a funeral. It’s supposed to be sad.’

She gives a quick shake of the head, remembering how silent tears had fallen until ‘Tears in Heaven’ had played at Miranda’s funeral, at which point she’d wept loudly and uncontrollably.

‘I’ve told Barbara that I want the whole thing kept short.’ Barbara from Leigh Family Funerals had been professional, sensitive and understanding. She hadn’t looked at Penelope with the usual sympathy that people did once they found out about her death sentence. This wasn’t the first time Barbara had been given specific funeral requests from someone terminally ill.

‘Can I say something at the funeral?’ His eyes remain on the paper in front of them rather than meeting hers.

She’d feared he might ask this, imagining the words he’d say about her. Imagining him having to stand there shaky and broken. ‘I’ve told Barbara I don’t want a eulogy.’

His mouth twists. ‘Okay, but what about a brief acknowledgement of how you’ve made my life a better life just for knowing you?’