I go to my library that evening and sit on the floor, staring at the books from my mother’s childhood. I pull out an old copy of Anne of Green Gables and see her name in careful joined-up handwriting on the first page: Coral Costello, aged 9 ¼. I run my finger over it. I’m sure she must have loved Anne too – her wildness, her spirit, her imagination. Did she dream of one day sharing this story with me? How did she feel when she knew – when she was told – that she would never see me grow up? I rest my hand over her writing and close my eyes.

The air stills. This room is my sanctuary. I sit and breathe in the invisible stories all around me, the characters trapped between the pages of the books only until someone reads the words, and then they’re set free. Books can take you places and show you people you’d never meet in real life. I breathe in the faint scent of oil paint too – and suddenly I can see Mum in my mind’s eye, clear as day, her red hair shining in the sunlight (it’s sunny again!) and a big smile on her face. A great sense of warmth rushes through me. She’s here; I haven’t forgotten her, and I won’t, ever.

It’s time to rescue the books from the library of lemons.

I go downstairs and tell Dad, ‘We need to get those books from behind the shed.’

He is sitting at his desk, staring at nothing. His eyes close. ‘I’m tired, Calypso.’

‘So am I. But we need to get the books.’

‘It’s dark.’

‘Now, Dad. It’s important.’

He heaves the biggest sigh ever, deflating, like all the breath is leaving his body.

I wait, impatiently. ‘Come on.’

Eventually he says, ‘All right.’

It takes him ages to put on his boots by the back door. My boots are too small and pinch my toes, but I hardly notice because I am shifting from one foot to the other, feeling irritation grow by the second. Why is he so slow?

We take a torch into the garden. The shed is at the end, with a small gap between the back of it and the hedge. Dad shines the torch into the gap. I swallow. There are nine or ten cardboard boxes of books, stacked on top of each other. How did he even fit them into this gap?

‘We must bring them inside,’ I say.

Dad opens his mouth and then closes it again. He hands me the torch and reaches for the nearest box. It takes a lot of pulling and wriggling to get it to move, and then one side falls away completely, spilling paperbacks onto the grass. I see Pride and Prejudice, The Handmaid’s Tale, Enduring Love – Mum’s books.

‘Pick them up!’ I say, reaching desperately to grab as many as I can. We fill our arms and carry them back to the kitchen where I stack them on the table.

They are in a pitiful state. Some are black and mouldy round the edges; others have come apart at the binding. All are damp.

I am filled with fire. We must save them. It is my mission. ‘We have to get them all in. Not just Mum’s – all of them.’

Dad balks at this. ‘We can’t get them all tonight, Calypso. It’s dark and cold, and we have nowhere to put them.’

‘Yes we do,’ I say obstinately. ‘We have your library.’

After all, the shelves are no longer occupied by lemons.

Dad is cold and damp himself by the time he’s brought all the books inside. It takes him nearly two hours. Every now and then he mutters in a complaining way, but then he glances at me and stops.

Some of the books are beyond saving. The enormous atlas disintegrates in my hands, the seams dissolved and the paper blotched and unreadable. But others have survived better. I spread them all out over the shelves and the floor of the library, pages open to the air to dry. There are so many that by the time we have finished there is no space to place even one foot inside the room. We stand and stare from the doorway at the metres and metres of words. My back aches and I should have been in bed hours ago, but I feel satisfaction at the sight. I can almost see Mum nodding and smiling at me.

Behind me, Dad gives a big sigh. I can’t tell if it’s a sigh of happiness or a sigh of sadness. Does he miss his lemons? I daren’t ask.

‘Thank you,’ I say instead.