“So what’d she say about that?” said Trevor.

“Believe it or not, that’s when the conversation became kind of great. I mean, you were so right, they don’t want to take people away. They want to help you figure out how to take care of them so you don’t get into those kinds of situations as much — you don’t feel so alone.”

Trevor frowned. “Well, you know you’re not alone, Karie.”

“No,” I said, “I know I’m not alone. I just mean she was really great about going over Kelli’s benefits with me and the kind of help that’s available. There are all these services I didn’t know about — Eleanor says they can set us up with a team, practically.”

“Wait wait wait,” said Trevor, holding up a hand. “I thought you decided you didn’t even need home care — now you want a team?”

Now I was at a point in the story where I felt I should start editing myself a little. Because the truth was, Eleanor Mallon and I had started talking about the need for “a team” after I’d asked her about what Jessica Hendy had told me in the driveway the day before. In particular, what Jessica had said about Bestlife, the home care service my mother used. I asked Eleanor Mallon if it was true that these companies weren’t regulated, and that some were more above-board than others. Eleanor Mallon confirmed for me that, yes, this was so. And then, after I explained to her about Trevor (that he was, I said, a home care worker my mother had befriended, who occasionally broke the rules by helping her out around the house), I asked Eleanor Mallon if she thought it was out of the ordinary for a provider like Bestlife to hire a male worker like Trevor and pair him up with a female client like my sister. Eleanor Mallon blinked a few times behind her owly glasses and told me she wasn’t entirely sure, but her instinct, she said, her gut feeling was that, yes, this was somewhat out of the ordinary. Not exactly standard operating procedure, was how she put it.

She’d raised her eyebrows then. “Do you have concerns about this person?”

“Trevor?” I’d said. “Oh no — no, no, not at all! He’s great with Kelli. Totally professional. I just heard it’s an unusual set-up, the boy-girl thing. It just got me wondering about Bestlife.”

Eleanor had told me she would ask around just to make sure. She’d make a few inquiries about Bestlife and let me know what she found. She stood up at that point, glancing at her watch — I guessed the visit had gone longer than she’d expected it would — and carefully transferring the cookie crumbs sprinkled across her lap onto the tea tray. But that was when I realized, with a sudden jolt of adrenalin, that Eleanor Mallon might be in a position to advise me on Gorsebrook too. The next thing I knew I was babbling about Jeremy going missing. I described to Eleanor, despairingly, how I had pinned all my hopes on Gorsebrook Residential. How I had planned my and Kelli’s entire future around it. And now I had lost faith and I did not know what to do.