“I’m thinking of going back to work soon.”

My mother tries unsuccessfully to mask her surprise. We’re in her small and immaculate lounge, barefoot as always in deference to the cream carpet. It’s not just in the hall; she loves a bargain, and had it laid throughout the ground floor. Considering this is the lounge, there are quite stringent rules around the kind of lounging that is permitted. Red wine is a complete no-no, as is any kind of nonwhite food. So white wine is allowed, and mash or rice pudding. I’m not even kidding. Elle and I put away tins of the stuff throughout our teenage years, and despite the fact that the carpet is at least fifteen years old, it looks almost as good as new. The sofa covers the only stain that will never come out: a teenage Elle came home off her face on gin and black currant one Christmas morning after visiting her then boyfriend down the road for less than an hour. Impressive really, until she threw up on Mum’s carpet then passed out cold in her Christmas dinner.

“Really?” Mum says. I can see that she’s trying to choose what to say next. I imagine her bypassing about bloody time, and pausing to consider thank goodness for that, before finally settling on what actually comes out of her mouth. “Are you sure you’re ready, love?”

I shrug and half shake my head, even though I’m trying to nod. “I can’t stay at home on my own for much longer without going round the bend, Mum. And I’m sleeping better now with the tablets.”

What I don’t say is that I need to give myself something to do, something tangible to focus on in the real world. My job as events manager at the community center isn’t rocket science; it’s mainly desk-based, but I work with a good bunch of people and the pay is decent. They’ve been kind and allowed me the time off so far as paid sick leave but it can’t go on indefinitely.

Mum comes and perches beside me on the sofa, her hand on my knee.

“You could always come back and stay here for a while. If it’d help?”

I feel my bottom lip begin to tremble, because we both know she’d hate it but she loves me enough to say it anyway. It’s not the first time she’s offered; she’s said it at least once a week since Freddie died. I’d hate it too. I like to eat stain-inducing curry off a plate balanced on my knees in the living room and to fall to pieces when no one’s watching.

“I know,” I say, covering her hand with mine and giving it a squeeze. “But it’s not the right thing to do, you know that. I have to move sentiently through my grief, and I don’t think that means moving back in with my mother.”

She snorts a little bit. It’s fast becoming a stock piss-take phrase in our family.

“I’ll pack your lunch for you, then. Just for the first day or two.”

I expect she’s still got the clear pink lunch box she used to send me to school with. “Okay,” I say, “that’d help, Mum.” Though I suspect it’ll help her more than me.

She nods fast. “I’ll get those mint biscuits you used to like, the ones with shiny green wrappers.”

I swallow around the lump in my throat, feeling fifteen again, back to the days when I slept upstairs in a single bed in the room I shared with Elle.

“First Monday in June, then?” she prompts, and I think about it, wondering if I can. We’re in the last week of May now; she’s only giving me a few days grace to get myself together. I expect she’s keen to catch the wave in case the next one pulls me under and I change my mind, and because I can’t promise that wouldn’t happen, I nod slowly.

“First Monday in June, then.”

“Good girl.” She pats my knee as she stands up. “I’ll just nip in the kitchen and add those biscuits to my shopping list.”

I watch her go, wondering if she knows that she’s one of the guardians of my sanity. My mum and her lists used to crack Freddie up—he used to add random things to them when she wasn’t looking: hose pipes or dollhouses or nasal trimmers. The memory makes me smile and then ache, because I’ve reluctantly decided to try to ration my visits to once a weekend. It’s too much of a good thing, as unsustainable as eating tablespoons of sugar. The problem with addiction is that at some point you have to give up whatever it is that’s taken you over, or else give yourself over completely to it. I don’t want either of those things to happen. I want both of my lives, and for that to happen I need a secure footing here in the real world. Time to lace up my walking boots.