Page 106 - The Midnight Library

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‘I just wanted to know. Did I see much of Mum before she died?’

Joe frowned. He was still the same Joe. Still unable to read his sister. Still
wanting to escape reality. ‘You know we weren’t there. It happened so fast.
She didn’t tell us how ill she was. To protect us. Or maybe because she didn’t
want us to tell her to stop drinking.’

‘Drinking? Mum was drinking?’
Joe’s worr y increased. ‘Sis, have you got amnesia? She was on a bottle of
gin ever y day since Nadia came onto the scene.’
‘Yeah. Course. I remember.’

‘Plus you had the European Championships coming up and she didn’t
want to interfere with that . . .’
‘Jesus. I should have been there. One of us should have been there, Joe.
We both—’

His expression frosted suddenly. ‘You were never that close to Mum, were
you? Why this sudden—’
‘I got closer to her. I mean, I would have. I—’
‘You’re freaking me out. You’re acting not quite yourself.’

Nora nodded. ‘Yes, I . . . I just . . . yes, I think you’re right . . . I think it’s
just the tablets . . .’
She remembered her mother, in her final months, saying: ‘I don’t know
what I would have done without you.’ She’d probably said it to Joe too. But in

this life, she’d had neither of them.
en Priya arrived into the room. Grinning, clutching her phone and
some kind of a clipboard.
‘It’s time,’ she said.