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bring some sort of closure.
That the first anniversary will be the most painful.
Maybe once Christmas is out of the way.
    As time passes, it gradually dawns on you that this
feeling is not temporary. Doctors are happy to sign
medical certificates with a flourish. You are offered
sleeping pills, counselling and anti-depressants, but it
doesn't feel as if they should be the answer. Something
has changed permanently and you have to get used to
this new reality, a whole new perspective. Possibly, an
entirely new way of living. The loss becomes a part of
who you are and, in time, as you begin to accept that, it
seems only right. There is a chance that the people you
knew before will not fit into your new life. It is not that
you think of them any differently. It has more to do
with the way that they look at you with pity in their
eyes. The nervous way they approach you. The way that
they call with forecasts of their good intentions, but
when it actually comes down to it, it's easier for them to
go to the pub with a new friend rather than cry into a
mug of tea with an old one. The things that they don't
say rather than the things they do. And it has to be said
that I wasn't a good host to those people who dared to
come near me. To tell the truth, I was far happier to be
left alone with my memories than to confront all of the
todays and tomorrows that were queuing up endlessly
just outside the front door, complete with its brand-new
five-lever mortise deadlock: Kevin's addition to what he
considered to be the extremely lax approach to security
taken by the so-called professionals. It was easy to sit in
the centre of the sofa and imagine that my mother was
in the kitchen trusting Delia to let her into the secret of
what it was you were supposed to do with the celeriac
you bought in Tesco in a fit of enthusiasm, while my
dad was lovingly tinkering with his latest acquisition
out the front. His desirable wrecks, he called them.
There were days when I could swear I saw the fleeting
movement of a skirt through a half-opened door, heard
the clanging of a wrench being dropped. The memory
of the senses is a powerful tool. Sounds that I had
always thought were man-made turned out to be the
sounds that the house itself made. It had a voice of its
own. The central heating firing up early in the morning.
The staircase creaking as the house warmed up and
relaxed. The wind singing through the chimney. The
clatter of the letter box when the postman visited, which
sent me running down the stairs to see if we – if I – was
being burgled.
    Sometimes, my parents' absence seemed more
powerful than their presence. Sometimes I could have
sworn they were still there.

Chapter Eight
    Between Aunty Faye and Social Services, it had been
decreed that Nana had taken complete leave of her
senses.
    'In some cases, a shock like this can accelerate the
ageing process,' was one of their favourite theories.
Alzheimer's was the word that was being tried on for
size. And, one way or another, they were determined to
make it fit. Like the ugly sisters with Cinderella's glass
slipper. Then they could give her a label and they would
know exactly what to do with her.
    There is no doubt that her inability to recall the
accident from one day to the next was causing Aunty
Faye a great deal of distress. 'She doesn't want to
remember. She's doesn't want to remember anything .'
    But it had to be more than that. If there was the
option of choosing not to remember, I would have
taken it. As, I'm sure, would Aunty Faye, who had gladly
accepted the mountain of sleeping pills that her doctor
had offered. If I slept, there were a few moments of
peace on waking before I was struck by the stillness
of the house and questioned the reason for it. Then, of
course, it dawned on me, and I pulled the duvet over my
head to shut the facts out. Nana had always called out
for one thing or another as soon as she woke up. The
first thing that I would hear was 'Laura do this' or
'Laura, fetch me