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say they are just confused and angry, I believe that’s
a common reaction to suicide. But if you need someone to talk to, I’m
here.’
    Eva got up from the bench and attempted a
watery smile. ‘Thank you for the advice and the kindness. I’ll remember them
both. But there’s work to be done.’
    Olive was impressed that, as bad as Eva was
feeling, she had kept her dignity and remembered that this was her boss she was talking
to, not an aunt or a friend she expected to be able to lean on. So she handed her a
tissue and patted her on the shoulder. ‘Now go and wash your face, put on some
lippy, and get yourself a cup of coffee. Let someone else deal with the difficult
customers for the time being. And when you need more time off, let me know. You will get
through this.’
    Later that morning Olive watched Eva talking
to a customer on the phone, and she marvelled at the girl’s ability toput aside her own troubles and do her job properly. She was very
tempted to phone Mr Patterson and remind him his eldest child needed some support from
him. But of course it wasn’t her place to interfere.
    That evening as Eva drove home she felt a
little better for a day at work. It had made her believe she could get through this, and
that the sun would shine again before long.
    From her first day with the company,
she’d loved it. It was only twenty minutes’ drive from home, a modern, light
and airy two-storey building in pleasant surroundings, and the other staff were all
warm, jolly people. Her parents had never taken any interest in her work; they never
even looked at the firm’s catalogue, and the implication had always been that it
was a dead-end job. But it hadn’t bothered Eva too much because she was happy
there.
    She realized Olive must have told the staff
what had happened because they all said how sorry they were. But no one had asked how
she felt, and she’d been very glad of that. She didn’t really know how she
felt, or even how she should feel. Was there a proper way to feel about your
mother’s death?
    The horror of the scene in the bathroom was
as sharp now as it had been when she found her mother. She suspected it was going to
haunt her for ever. Yet she hadn’t really cried about it – well, except this
morning with Olive. Perhaps that was because she was angry at what had been done to the
family. But there was also bewilderment, and anxiety that she may have unwittingly done
or said something that had pushed her mother over the edge. But she didn’t feel
grief as such, at least not the way she’d read about it in magazines. Was that
because her emotions were frozen by shock?
    She had asked the doctor about grief on that
morning when he called round. She was expecting to find she was abnormalin being relatively calm and being able to do normal chores. His response was that
grief affected people in many different ways. Drinking and staring into space, like her
father was doing, was one way. Ben’s silence was another, and Sophie’s
hysterical outbursts still another. That made Eva feel ashamed that she believed her
sister was just milking it for attention, and she resolved to be kinder to her. The
doctor had added that some people went into denial and acted as if nothing had happened
for a while, but it usually caught up with them sooner or later. Eva didn’t seem
to fit into any of those camps, and she wondered if she could ask Olive her views on
it.
    But her overriding distress was the way her
dad was treating her. He had never been a warm person; Mum had often said that he lacked
empathy. But to all intents and purposes Eva could have been an uninvolved lodger. The
day after it happened he had gone to both Sophie and Ben’s rooms to talk to them.
As she passed the doors she saw him cuddling them and telling them that it would get a
little easier every day. But he’d barely said a word to her.
    As she drove home she decided that tonight
she was going to make him talk to her. If he had some issue