On Tuesday morning Mum gets another letter from the bank. I hate seeing the symbol on the front. I shove them down the side of the microwave or in the recycling bin, so she doesn’t have to see them. The letters used to come for Mr and Mrs Baldi but now they’re just for her. At first it was brutal to see his name dropping through the letterbox in the mornings, as if nothing had happened. But now I miss seeing his name on letters and even the junk mail. I miss seeing his name. To the bank it is as if he doesn’t even exist anymore. There’s only one place left I could see his name now and I can’t go there because Mum isn’t talking to Nonno, after the huge argument they had about organ donation. Dad is buried in the Baldi family plot in Italy and we are left here without him.

I can’t think about the different parts of him she gave away, the organs that might be inside someone else right now, making them breathe and walk around when he cannot. I don’t know what I feel about it. His heart stopped working so surely the rest of him would too? I left ICU each time Mum and Nonno started arguing – I couldn’t bear to listen to them discuss Dad like he was just a list of body parts. And because of that I didn’t get to say goodbye.

The letters were yellow and full of cells and light. I can see the sign for ICU as if it is in front of me again. I am sitting on that blue chair waiting outside Dad’s room and all I can see is the sign – ICU. I read it until the symbols lose all meaning. The letters look like another language someone has made up. I can’t interpret it or understand. I am not in the room with them because they are arguing, again. I can’t go back with Mum and Nonno and hear them discuss what to do if, what will happen if, what if he doesn’t… Someone asks me something, someone in uniform. No sound comes out of my throat. I am mute. Voiceless. Soundlessly I ignore them and hope they’ll go away. I hope they’ll do the right thing and just leave me be, sat outside ICU on my own.

I read the sign again, it’s still there, bright yellow in my eyes, but then there’s more than one of them, there’s two, then three, then six or seven in uniform appearing from different directions. They’re running past me, they’re shouting words in their alien hospital code and someone is pushing a cart with equipment on it and Dad’s door is swung open. Then Dad’s door closes and I stand outside it. I want to ask someone for help. I want to call out to one of the running people to come and help me open the door because I’ve forgotten how to make it work. My hand is shaking so badly and I’ve forgotten how to do the handle. I am on the outside looking in and the noises coming from his room are loud and frightening, filling my ears so that I can’t even hear my own voice anymore or any of the thoughts in my head. There’s no running commentary or internal monologue at all, there’s just silence.

And then a beeping replaces the silence.

The beeping penetrates and establishes a rhythm that I move to, swaying back and forth in front of his door like a pendulum. I read the sign again: Intensive Care Unit.

Beeping. Yellow.

I read it over and over.

Yellow. Beeping.

And then the beeping stops.

There is silence inside and outside of me.

And when I sit back down on the blue chair the yellow of the light goes out.

I watch Mum as she slips her shoes on in the hallway, her long auburn hair pulled up into a sharp bun this morning. She looks very serious.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘It’s a letter from the bank. Another letter about your dad’s estate,’ she adds, the word sounding awkward.

‘Estate?’ I want to laugh, but it’s not funny. ‘He was hardly Lord of the Manor, more like the groundsman.’ I try humour, but it fails.

‘It’s a bank term, it doesn’t mean… Oh, don’t worry.’ She folds the letter back up. But I do worry.

‘Is everything alright?’

She looks at me as if she’s about to say something but then changes her mind.

‘With the bank, I mean. Is everything okay?’

‘There was some paperwork I should have returned, they say that I’ve missed a date. I need to find his death certificate again.’ The words are too heavy for her to hold in her mouth. She’s crying. I gently take the envelope from her and hide it behind my back.

‘I thought I was keeping on top of things, all this legal paperwork and…’ She stops, like she’s lost track and then looks at me. ‘Did you see any letters they sent?’

I think about all the letters I stuffed into a drawer, or down the side of the microwave and the ones that I recycled.

‘Um, not really,’ I lie.

‘You would tell me? I know what you’re like for stuffing things in places. If I’ve missed something on the life insurance… I’m sure I made a list but I can’t find that either,’ she admits.

‘I might have accidentally put a few letters in the bin,’ I confess.

Her eyes, mouth and the lines under her eyes all narrow, homing in on me. Her cheeks dip, the bones caving in under the pressure, and I can’t stop staring at them.

‘But I told you not to! Why can’t you just listen?’

‘I’m sorry, I thought it was just junk mail,’ I lie again without meeting her eyes.

‘Oh, come on. You’re not stupid; you know the difference. Have you been opening your dad’s mail? Or my letters from the bank? There’s private things in there, private details!’ She’s shouting at me now, pacing up and down the hall. ‘There’s no privacy in this house! None at all!’

‘I haven’t opened any of his mail, or yours either! Why would I open your post?’ I ask, righteous in my innocence.

‘If you hide it from me then I might miss something and then God knows what would happen…’

I don’t know what she’s on about. What would happen has already happened, surely there isn’t anything worse to worry about?

’Just stop putting letters in the bin. I’m not a child, you don’t need to hide things from me! I’m the adult here,’ she adds as if I need reminding. I know who holds all the power and decision-making privileges in this house.

‘I was just trying to help…’ I start but she interrupts again.

‘But you’re not helping. Can’t you see that? You’re making things harder for me,’ she says. ‘I’m trying my best to keep things together and you’re…’

Now I interrupt her. ‘I don’t know what you’re on about.’

‘No, you don’t. And you’re not supposed to, there’s no reason why you should. Just leave it to me and stop interfering in things that are none of your business!’ She says it like she’s said it a hundred times already today. As if I’m a child. Just some toddler who needs disciplining. She’s at the front door now. Clearly the conversation is over for her.

‘I was only hiding the stuff with his name on because…’ I stop myself.

‘Well, don’t. Okay?’ She starts marching up the street to find the car.

I only hid them because I didn’t want her to end up on the floor again, slumped against the wall, crying so hard that she had to stumble to the downstairs loo to be sick. I can’t tell her that.