They sat in silence again. Maria kept hold of her wrist, but it didn’t feel intrusive. It felt as if she was imparting something, even though Ayesha had no idea what that might be, and could feel herself fighting. She was fighting the desire to confide more, and fighting the sense of comfort she was deriving from physical contact, whilst fighting her own despicable weakness and need for attention – if that’s what it was. Most of all she was fighting the fact that she would never see her little brother again, which was a truth she had known for just over three years and yet seemed to stab her all the time, as if shards of something had lodged in her heart and cut it when she turned, or took a step – that re-realisation of the truth. For it hadn’t been a dream, or a hoax, or a horrible film… Kristin had cycled into the path of a lorry, and there had been no miracle to prevent him being lost beneath its unforgiving wheels. People sympathised, but after all the sympathy and tears, he still wouldn’t and couldn’t do the one thing she wanted: he couldn’t walk into the kitchen.

‘Where’s your tie?’ she might have said, if it was a school day.

‘Oh. Shit.’

‘Kristin!’

‘I forgot…’

She looked at Maria again, and the ache was almost too much.

‘I get so tired,’ she said quietly. ‘I never knew how tiring it is, just to be sad.’

‘Yes, it is.’

‘Does it pass?’

‘What?’

‘This. That’s what I want to know. Am I ever going to be just… normal again? Because that’s what I want.’

‘No,’ said Maria.

‘No?’

‘Of course not. How can you be?’

‘Why not, though? You don’t think so, but… Are you a counsellor?’

‘No, I’m a dogsbody,’ said Maria. ‘I work in a hospice. I am very good at cleaning, and my… my husband is a driver, and some construction. But to lose a brother, or anyone that you love… I mean love. How can you be the same? You would not want to be the same.’

‘I want to be the same.’

‘If you were the same, then what you had… What you had with him – it would not have been worth anything.’

She spoke slowly, struggling with the tenses.

‘I don’t know.’

‘I do. What we have with people… with those we love – there is nothing more important. What is more important? Tell me.’

‘I want him back, Maria.’

‘What was his name?’

‘Kristin. And he won’t come back. He’s gone, and I can’t bear it.’

‘Yes, you can.’

‘I can’t. I’m not bearing it. None of us can.’

‘You are, though. You are bearing it, and… we must. You want to stop?’

‘To stop what?’

‘You want to die?’

‘No. Yes. Sometimes I do, but…’

‘You can’t. Not yet.’