To be honest, I’d been tired for so long I don’t remember, not accurately, when I realized something serious was wrong with me. I put up with it, though. Told myself I needed more rest and that it would pass. But it didn’t. No matter how much I slept I was always tired. It wasn’t until Tegan asked me to go to the doctor that I realized. My four-year-old actually voiced what I couldn’t—wouldn’t—face, the simple fact that I wasn’t myself anymore. She’d gotten tired of me being too exhausted to play with her. Of me having nosebleeds. Of me being breathless after even the smallest amount of exertion. “Mummy, if you go to the doctor she can make you better,” she said one day out of the blue. Just said it, and I did it.

I sat in the doctor’s office, told her what was wrong, and she did a blood test. Then called me in for more tests. More tests with names and words I’d heard on the medical shows, words that never had a happy ending on TV. But they couldn’t truly have anything to do with me. Not really. The doctors were eliminating possibilities.

Then, I got the call. Even then…And even when she told me…When the doctor said she was sorry and started talking about treatments and prognosis, I didn’t believe it. No, that’s not right. I did believe it. I just didn’t understand. Not why. Not how. Not me.

It took a good few days for what I’d been told to sink in. Every second counted, they said, but I still couldn’t comprehend. I didn’t look that ill. A little paler, a little slower, but not really and truly ill. I kept thinking they were wrong. You hear about it all the time, the wrong diagnosis, people defying the doctors’ theories, finding out they had glandular fever instead of…

About a week later, on my way to work, I got to the train station early, mega early, as usual. I sat on one of the benches and a woman came and stood beside me. She pulled her mobile out of her bag and made a call. When the person on the other end picked up and she said, “Hello, it’s Felicity Halliday’s mother here. I’m calling because she’s not very well and she won’t be coming to school today,” I fell apart. Just broke down in tears. It hit me then, right then, that I would never get the chance to make a call like that. I would not get to do a simple mum thing like call my daughter’s school. There were a million things I would never get to do again and that was one of them.

Everyone was terribly British about it all and ignored me as I cried and sobbed and wailed. Yes, wailed. I made a hideous noise as I broke into a million, trillion pieces.

Then this man, this angel, sat down, put his arm around me and held me while I cried. The train came, the train left. As did the next one and the next one. But this man stayed with me. Stayed with me as I cried and cried. I totally soaked and snotted up the shoulder of his nice suit jacket but he didn’t seem to mind, he waited and held me until I stopped wailing. Then he gently asked me what was wrong.

Through my sobs, all I could say was, “I’ve got to tell my little girl I’m going to die.”

“mummy?”

chapter 1

T
he postman jumped as I snatched open the front door to my block of flats and eagerly greeted him.

Usually when we came face-to-face, he’d have buzzed up to my first-floor flat and I’d come shuffling down to the ground level, pulling on my dressing gown as I tried to rub dried sleep drizzle off my face. Today, though, I’d been hanging out of my window waiting for him. I was in my usual dressing gown and had sleep-sculpted hair, but this time my eyes weren’t barely open slits, I’d washed my face and I was smiling.

“Special day, is it?” he said without humor.

He clearly didn’t like this reversal of roles. He wanted me to be sedate and disorientated when he handed over my post. It was probably the only power trip he got in a day. Ahhh, that’s not fair. He was lovely, my postman.

In fact, everyone in the world was lovely today.

“It’s my birthday.” I grinned, showing off my freshly cleaned teeth.

“Happy birthday,” he commented, dour as a priest at prayer time, and handed over the post for the four flats in our block. I keenly took the bundle that was bound by a brown elastic band, noting that almost all of the envelopes were red or purple or blue. Basically, card-colored. “Twenty-one again, eh?” the postie said, still unwilling to be infected by my good humor.

“Nope, I’m thirty-two and proud,” I replied. “Every birthday is a bonus! And anyway, today I get to wear gold sequins and high heels and brush gold dust all over my cleavage.”

The postie’s small brown eyes flicked down to my chest area, then he immediately snatched his gaze away. It’d probably occurred to him that he shouldn’t be eyeing up the women on his delivery route—especially when said lady wasn’t even undressed enough to make it worth his while.

He started backing away. “Have a good day, love,” he said. “I mean, dear. I mean, bye.” And then he legged it down the garden path far quicker than a man of his girth and age should be able to.

“You too,” I called after him as I shut the door. I flung the letters that weren’t for me but had the audacity to arrive at this address today on the floor of the hallway. They landed unceremoniously on top of the other, older letters that sat like orphaned children, longing to be rescued. I usually felt sorry for those letters, wished the people they’d been sent to would give them a good home, but they weren’t my problem today. I barely gave them a second thought as I took the stairs two at a time back up to my flat.

In my bedroom I had already laid out my birthday breakfast feast: fresh croissants with smoked salmon, three chocolate truffles and a glass of Moët.

Everything had to be perfect today. Everything. I’d planned it that way. After I’d devoured my special brekky, I’d stay in bed until midday, opening birthday cards while receiving calls from well-wishing friends and relatives. Then I had an appointment at the hairdresser to get my hair washed, deep-conditioned and cut. I was going for a radical change—ditching my usual chin-length bob for a style with long layers and a sweeping fringe. After that, I’d come back home and get dressed up. I really was going to wear a dress of gold sequins that set off my dark skin in spectacular fashion. I was going to squeeze my feet into gold high heels and I was going to brush gold dust over my cleavage. And then a few of the girls from work were coming round for drinks and nibbles before we went into town to dance the night away.

I slipped carefully under the sheets, not wanting to spill any of the special spread, then took a swig of champagne before I tore through my cards like a child. Around me the pile of brightly colored envelopes grew as I tugged out the cards and smiled at the words written inside.

It wasn’t dim of me, then, not to notice it. It was like all the others. Slipped in among the bundle, innocuous and innocent-looking. And, like all the others, I didn’t really look at it, didn’t try to decipher the handwriting on the envelope, ignored the picture on the front. I simply opened it, eager to receive the message of love that had been scrawled inside. My heart stopped. I recognized the handwriting before I read the words. The words I read with a racing heart.

Dear Kamryn,

Please don’t ignore this.

I need to see you. I’m dying. I’m in St. Jude’s Hospital in central London.

Yours, Adele x

P.S., I miss you.

Slamming it shut I registered for the first time that the card had “I love you” on it instead of one of the usual birthday greetings.

The glossy cardboard sailed across the room as though it had burned my fingers. It landed on the wicker laundry basket and sat there staring at me. With its white front and simple design and three treacherous words, it sneered at me. Daring me to ignore it. Daring me to pretend the words inside weren’t carved into my brain like they were scored onto the card.

I took a slug of my champagne but it tasted like vinegar in my mouth. The croissant, carefully sliced and filled with smoked salmon, was like sawdust as I chewed. The truffles were paste on my tongue.

Still the card stared at me. Goading me.
Ignore me if you can,
it mocked.
Go on, try it.

I threw back the covers, got out of bed and went over to the card. Dispassionately, I tore it in half. Then tore those pieces in half again. I stomped into the kitchen, stamped on the pedal of the trash bin to open it and dropped the remains on top of the rotting vegetables, greasy leftovers and discarded wrappers.

“There. That’s what I think of that! And you!” I hissed at the card and its sender.

I returned to my bed. That was better. Much better. I sipped my champagne and ate my food. And everything was all right again. Perfect, even. Just like it should be on my birthday.

Nothing could ruin it. No matter how much anyone tried. And they were bloody trying, weren’t they? You don’t try much harder than with that message, dressed up as a birthday card. Very clever. Very bloody clever. Well, it wasn’t going to work. I wasn’t falling for that nonsense. I was going to carry on with my plan. I was going to make my thirty-second more special than my eighteenth, twenty-first and thirtieth birthdays combined.

Because when I am thirty-two I shall wear gold sequins and six-inch stilettos and brush gold dust over my cleavage,
just as I promised myself ages ago.

The door was ajar and didn’t protest as I gently pushed on it. I didn’t knock. I never knocked on an already open door because to me it always said, “Come, no knocking required.”

From her place amongst her white pillows, she smiled as I stepped into view. “I knew you’d come,” she whispered.

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