The ambulance was already at the house when I got home but it was too late. Mam was already gone. A brain haemorrhage. And just like that I had to adapt. The days passed like it was all happening to someone else, the wake, the funeral. How did we pull that out of the bag with no notice and no experience? Numbness, shock, accepting help; the realization that the practical things are all we can control, making the arrangements, choosing readings, picking songs, buying flowers. Crying. From that day on, I never felt like a child again.

I won’t be picking songs for this latest shock. There is no tune to suit the sudden realization that everything around me, everything I’ve built, worked hard to save, is at risk.

Tom is standing in front of the fireplace. I’m sitting on the sofa. His eyes are darting from the floor to the ceiling to the window to the anything but me. He lifts his hand to pull at the collar of his shirt. Pull harder, Tom.

‘Go on,’ I coax him. ‘Tell me what happened? What did she say?’ I want to get this over with as soon as possible. Return to normality. Boring and all as that normal is, it’s mine.

‘There’s a problem, Sally.’ I shuffle forward in my seat, my eyes glued to Tom’s lips.

‘The social worker, Saoirse, she wants to meet you, Sal, to explain what’s happening.’

‘What do you mean to explain what’s happening?’

‘Well… It’s… there’s no other family Sally, I’m all he has.’

‘Did you tell that woman what I said, that we can’t have a stranger in the house? It’s not going to happen. You did tell her, didn’t you?’

Tom rubs his hands into his face like it’s cleaning off a layer of skin.

‘You told her, didn’t you?’

‘I told her how you feel. I did… but—’

‘But what, Tom?’

‘She just said it’s what she’d expect your initial reaction to be.’ Tom moves his head to the side like a dog being scolded.

‘It’s not initial, Tom. It’s final.’

He’s looking at his feet now, anywhere but at me.

‘Is that not what you think, too? I thought we were of the same opinion, that housing a complete stranger is not an option.’

I can sense a shift in his attitude. Tom is no longer with me on this. The social worker has guilted him into caring about this boy. She got to him. She won’t get to me.

‘Tom you’re not suggesting we take this kid into our house to live with our children, this stranger that we know nothing about… Are you?’

My heart pounds in my chest, tears blur my vision. I move closer to him to take his hand. He pulls away from me.