I know that in my grief I bear some responsibility for Simone’s isolation. That my emotional reticence, my inability to articulate, has at times left her feeling alone to carry the weight of our sorrow. But I feel it all. It plays on the inside of my eyelids at night. It stops my heart and I wish desperately that I could tell her all of the things I have kept from her.

Like how I once followed a small child in a shopping mall because he had blond hair like Phineas’s, and he was wearing a striped shirt like the one she loved. How I had called his name and wished so badly for it to be him. But when the child turned to face me he regarded me only with confusion, and I felt such a great vacuum of affection when he took his father’s hand that my legs went weak and I collapsed beside a parked car.

How in the weeks after his death when I drank I saw a dark twin in my own reflection. A callous stranger that inhabited my body in those before times. A devil who held the world in his hands but regarded it all with such a cold indifference.

In my mind I itemise my transgressions: all of the early mornings I spent wishing so badly for the boy to cease existing (wishing desperately to return to bed, for a little more sleep), all of the evenings I would return home from a hard day’s work and tower over him, his eyes as keen and boundless as a golden retriever’s, and I would snap at him to clean up his toys.

And perhaps worst of all, how I feel myself losing him now, the grip of my memory loosening each day. I see his face disintegrating in my mind. I forget the colour of his eyes, the sound of his laughter. I struggle to remember the shape of his face, or the smell of his hair. And I wonder when, not if, the day will come when I forget his likeness completely. When his body breaks down and he is reduced to simply a vague notion.

I sit in the dark of our bedroom and wonder if maybe it is best to forget.

XXIX

In the morning we are drawn downstairs by a commotion. I pull back the curtain to see tyre marks across the length of our lawn and an RV parked haphazardly next door. Phil and his son take turns running back and forth from the house, loading supplies. Helen stands on the porch, itemising their possessions aloud. Phil considers each for a moment before rendering a verdict, a sweaty arbiter.

‘The winter coats?’ she asks.

‘Pack them.’

‘The portable stovetop?’

‘Grab it.’

‘Bedding?’

‘I’ve packed some already.’

‘The photo albums?’ she asks hopefully.

‘Leave them.’

‘Phil—’ she says.

‘There’s no room,’ he snaps back.

I dress quickly and leave the house to find Phil packing items into the RV. Strapped to his shoulder is an old hunting rifle that I haven’t seen before.