Prologue
The day is bleak,cold and wet. Dark clouds roll across the sky, matching my mood. I have my thickest, warmest, winter coat thrown on over my thin, black dress, but I still feel cold. It’s the kind of cold that has worked its way under my skin and into my bones. I’m not sure that I’ll ever be able to shake it. As I stand here looking down into the grave at my mum’s coffin nestled at the bottom, I feelempty.
She’sdead.
Aside from myself, Richard, my best friend Nisha and a few drunken exes that left as soon as they realised there would be no wake with free booze, Mum has no mourners. I’m not surrounded by tons of family or friends who actually give a damn. There will be no talk about what a wonderful woman my mum was. There will be no sad smiles, lit with memories filled with love and laughter. My mum left this world the way she lived it, sad, broken andlonely.
“Louisa, come on, love. We should go.” I turn to find Richard and Nisha walking back towards me. The vicar is making his way across the graveyard and back to the church. Now it’s our turn to leave. Except I don’t want to go. In all the world the only people I have left are Richard and Nisha. Richard who has no obligation to me whatsoever, but is the kindest man I know, and Nisha who has stuck by me since we werekids.
“Just a minute,” I say, realising I still have a handful of dirt in my hand. Opening my palm, I look at the fine grains. This is it. This will be goodbye forever. Mum might have died over two weeks ago now, but I have lived in limbo ever since then. If you can call it living. Yet, despite everything Mum was, despite the fact she preferred booze over me, despite the fact she never seemed to love me at all, I can’t seem to leave hernow.
Richard stands next to me and places a gentle hand on my arm. “Louisa, you’ve been out here too long. You’re freezing. Let me take you home,love.”
“Come on Lou. Richard’s right, it’s time to go,” Nisha saysgently.
I look at them both. I can see their mouths moving, but the words make no sense. All I can think of is Mum trapped in that coffin, alone. My gaze falls back to the wooden casket, paid for by Richard. Without him, she would have had a pauper’s funeral. I owe him so much, more than I can everrepay.
“Will she be okay?” I murmur. I know it sounds ridiculous. She’s dead, being okay doesn’t apply to her now. Not that she was ever okay when she wasalive.
“When we are gone, the cemetery workers will take care of her. We’ll come back as soon as the headstone is put in place. Come on, Louisa,” Richard says gently, wrapping his arm about my shoulders. I look up at him, feeling numb. He is smiling kindly, but I can’t smile back. I can’t do anything but allow the grains of dirt to fall from my hands and onto her coffinbelow.
“Bye, Mum,” I whisper, as Richard guides me to his awaiting car, Nisha followingbehind.