We were lucky with the weather on the day you died. Unusually warm

for the time of year so the perspiration between my cheek and the

screen of my iphone surprised me when I couldn’t recall your street

name for the ambulance: ‘For god’s sake, it’s October!’ – I laughed

with the operator. The heating was on full whack, not that you’d have

been able to feel it, but I remember worrying that the paramedics must

be sweltering in all that gear they wear so I hunted for ice in your

freezer. Behind the potato waffles was a frost-burned tray holding a

single lonely cube. Still, I popped it out and offered drinks before they

carried you downstairs. Those spiral steps must’ve been awkward and

I thought I might shout out, involuntarily, like the time you shouted

after me when I rode a camel down the motorway with that sweet boy

in Sharm El Sheikh. I saw your slippers and cigarettes by the back door

and caught myself wondering if you’d need them. Silly. In the police

car on the way home I talked about how long those road works were

taking at Scarcroft intersection. There was a woman waiting to cross

at the temporary lights and honest to god, she was wearing a woolly

hat. Slate-grey with a lilac pom-pom. She must’ve been roasting. I

watched her, bewildered, until we’d driven all the way around the bend.

When I got home I unpacked fridge things from my shopper and put

the kettle on before I told the children you’d died. The oldest, well he

just cried and cried and that’s him all over but the youngest asked

what was for dinner. I thought we could have salad, I remember saying,