I left Mum at Crimson Orchard yesterday, so I could do the last bit of sorting by myself. I don’t know how she would feel if she knew she’d been moved out of her house; if she could see all the rooms empty; if she knew someone else would be moving in soon. The staff at Crimson Orchard are telling her that she is staying only temporarily and that, before long, she’ll go back home. They’ve let her keep her front-door keys, which she clutched in her hand right up until I left her. Although, quite soon, if she were to go back with them, the locks will have been changed.

“Lyds,” my mum said, when I was leaving. She looked out of place in her new room, which was decorated with someone in their eighties or nineties in mind. Mum has for the last couple of centuries looked like she is in her early forties. She still has black hair, just with some streaks of gray here and there. Her eyes are still bright.

“Mum, I’ll be back in a couple of minutes,” I said, as the doctor had told me to say.

“Julie, don’t worry,” the doctor said. “Lydia’s just going to pop out and get a cup of tea and a bite to eat.” But, of course, that was the wrong thing to say, and my mum’s eyes had widened until they were so big that they distorted the rest of her face, pushing her eyebrows far up her forehead. “You’re leaving! You’re leaving your mother!” Mum wailed, looking terrified like a child being left at nursery school for the first time.

“No, no, Mum, I’m not.” I reached to pat her on the head, but she twisted around and tried to bite me, so I pulled my hand away quickly. “The doctor misunderstood. I’m not going out to eat—I just need a wee.”

“GO. HERE,” Mum bellowed, gesturing to the bathroom adjoining her room.

I paused. “I . . .”

“Don’t worry, Julie. She’ll be back in a moment, I promise you,” the doctor said.

“Lyds, Lyds,” my mum whispered, ignoring the doctor and grabbing my top and pulling me closer. “Lyds, you hate me, don’t you? You hate me. Lyds . . . please . . .”

“Mum.”

“Lyds,” she said—and, momentarily, her expression changed to one of concern. “You won’t make it without me. You’re not the same as them.” But I shook her off, and her expression changed again to something more contrite. “Please . . . why do you hate me so much . . . please.” Tears ran down her face. But it was hard to know what was real with Mum, even tears.