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seat with his arms folded over his exploded chest, a blanket pulled up over his face. Daniel had sat on that embankment the whole time: utterly alone, knowing what he knew, giving up on words, giving up on language, giving up on childish explanations.
    We tried for a good long time to get him to talk but eventually he closed his eyes and went to sleep. It was amazing how he managed to do this; with us hugging him and harassing him and telling him that we loved him and promising him that he’d done his very best. Somehow he managed to shut us out. For the whole of that day and for four days after that, he managed to shut out the entire world.
    They took Mum to identify my father’s body while Sylvie and I waited outside in the corridor. The stink of disinfectant made me want to throw up but Sylvie didn’t seem to mind it all that much. I wondered if she knew what was going on, if she could sense the heartbreak that was all around her. I didn’t know what to say when my mother came out. She hadn’t spoken to me the whole way up in the police car, she’d just sat there and stared out of the window, plaiting and replaiting Sylvie’s hair.
    ‘Where have you been?’
    That was the last thing she said to me. When I turned up from the beach with my clothes in a knot and the last of Julio’s semen spilling out into my sea-soaked underwear. I looked almost as frightened as Daniel. I’d seen the police car parked outside the apartment block and though I knew it wasn’t true, I half suspected that they’d come to arrest me. Mum was crying. A policewoman had her arms round her shoulders and a policemen tried to take hold of my hand.
    ‘I didn’t do anything wrong,’ I said, backing away. ‘It wasn’t my fault, it was Julio’s.’
    ‘It’s not important now,’ said the officer, bending down. ‘Claire, something very bad has happened.’
    ‘I know,’ I said. ‘I heard it on the radio. I already know about that.’
    ‘No, sweetheart. It’s about your dad. He had a heart attack.’
    ‘Is he…OK?’
    ‘No. I’m sorry. He’s not.’
    I didn’t feel anything. I didn’t feel anything at all. Tears ran down my cheeks and stung my wind-chapped lips, but I couldn’t begin to take it in. And Mum just stared at me. In one searingglance she saw right through me, determined just exactly where I’d been and what I’d done.
    ‘What about my brother? What’s happened to Daniel?’
    ‘He’s gonna be fine. He’s a hero as a matter of fact.’
    This was a strange turn of events. My father stone cold dead and Daniel at the same time a hero. There was something in the police officer’s voice that suggested there was something to be happy about in all this. I didn’t feel it. I didn’t feel anything at all. I thought about Julio’s mouth pressing hard onto mine, and about our bodies wrapped up tight in the salty waves. I thought about the tiny rush of pain as he’d entered my body for the very first time and tried to remember exactly how it had felt. I thought about it all the way up to Cocoa Beach. All the way along the coast, past the cities and the swamps, to the hospital where they’d taken my father and brother.
     
    She walked out of that morgue like she was made of cardboard. The tears had rubbed her make-up to distant corners of her face and a crust of salt and orange coloured lipstick had settled heavily into the lines around her mouth. It looked to me like her face was rusting, like my mother had begun to corrode. I wanted to go up and hug her–I desperately wanted her to hug me–but Sylvie got to her first. She marched straight towards her, put her arms around Mum’s legs and sweetly, dutifully, began to cry.
    ‘Hush Sylvie,’ she said, gathering her up in her arms. ‘Don’t cry now, it’ll all be all right. You were there when Mummy needed you, you’re a wonderful girl. You were always there for your Mummy.’

Born Free
    It’s gone 3:00 a.m., Daniel still isn’t home, and we’ve run out of