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on her aunt’s face. “No, I mean, yes, I’ll do it. I’ll try.”
    The pair share a slightly damp hug, then pull apart.
    “This lino is cold,” Aunt Linda announces. “Why don’t we go sit on the sofa instead? And I’ll make us a nice cup of tea first – if you don’t mind.”
    Laura laughs shakily and agrees, wiping tears from her face. Her aunt bustles around the kitchen, and soon the pair are chatting about Uncle Kieran’s latest project. A DIY enthusiast, he has decided to build a boat. Both women agree they definitely won’t be going anywhere near it.
    It is late by the time Aunt Linda gives Laura a bone-cracking hug goodbye. The pair have talked, laughed and cried together. It is the first time Laura has really communicated with anyone for years, and it is a strange mixture of vulnerability and pleasure she feels at having let her brittle guard down a little.
    When she goes back into her lounge she notices something on her table. At some point her aunt had put out a notepad and pen without the younger woman noticing. The sneaky…!
    The eye-rolling is automatic, but Laura forces herself to pick them up and make herself comfortable. No time like the present, she decides, and starts to write, slowly at first, then with gathering speed as writing muscles she has not flexed for years loosen up.
    The morning mist hung thick over the fields, dissipating the low, late autumn sun into a heavy haze of golds and oranges. It lurked in hollows and piled up against the gentle rolls of the land, obscuring the scenery to mere hints of occasional hedge or tree as I drove to work from the out-lying village of Layer into Colchester.
    This section of lane was perfectly straight, and I drove along confidently despite the conditions, with my music turned up loud as I sang along. I glanced into my rear view mirror and quickly back again because the light was blinding behind me. Boy, was I glad I wasn’t travelling that way! The sun was still so low that it would have felt as if I was driving right into it in that direction, and the mist seemed to make it even more dazzling, creating a solid block of blinding light.
    That’s when I saw the white van appear. It was travelling towards me in the opposite direction, going straight and true…and slightly over the centre. I tried to move over but there was little room on this narrow country lane. Closer it got, closer. It was going to hit me.
    Heart racing, I beeped my horn, but it didn’t move over. The driver probably did not even realise he was on my side of the road because he could not see properly.
    Everything happened at once. The white wall of van flying by. A bang, a shattering sound, glass raining over me. Gasping, I pulled over in time to see the van disappear into the mist.
    I looked down at my hands and felt like they belonged to someone else as I watched blood blossoming from myriad pinprick injuries. Glittering shards of glass dusted my flesh, my coat, the steering wheel; they seemed to be everywhere. And more blood. There was a lot of blood for such tiny injuries.
    Suddenly I noticed those hands I was gazing at were now shaking.
    Breathing hard but brain on autopilot, I turned off the radio, leaving a scarlet smear on the button. Put the gear stick into neutral, and turned the engine off. Almost fell from the car. Only then did I burst into tears by the side of the road.
    The van had smashed into my wing mirror hard enough to tear it off and send it shattering through the driver’s side window. Unbelievably, though, that was the only damage. No scrape down the side of the car, no serious injuries on my part. Only a broken wing mirror, broken side window, and a few little cuts to my hand.
    I had called my dad, Seamus, in tears, and he had immediately called the police, then fetched me. Had sorted everything for me and got the car fixed within days. Typical Dad, he always looked after me.
    “You were so lucky,” he kept telling me. “It could have been so much