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CHAPTER ONE

I lost my only sister in the last days of November

It’s rotten ti too and darkness comes on earlier, and when the chill rains fall it seeood time to lose your best friend, but it seemed somehow harder to sit there and watch in that hospital roo and see only grey clouds beyond the hard s that offered no warmth, and no hope

When o out to the garden and sit side by side on the bench by the butterfly bush We would sit a long ti the sun on our faces and watching the butterflies dance

And the illness had see she could conquer, the way she had overco in her path She was famous for that, for her spirit Directors would cast her in roles that were ue hero roles, and she’d carry them off with her usual flair and the audience loved it They loved her The tabloids were cah the summer, and when she went into the hospital they cail around the main entrance

But just at the end there were only the three of us there in the room: me, my sister Katrina, and her husband, Bill

We were holding her hands, Bill and I, with our eyes on her face because neither of us could have looked at the other And after a tio of her hand because part of one, so I sat there in dull, hollow silence until Bill stood slowly and took the hand he was still holding and laid it with care on Katrina’s heart Gently he pressed his own hand on hers one final tier and passed it to ed to our mother

Wordlessly he held it out and wordlessly I took it, and still we couldn’t meet each other’s eyes And then I saw hi, he went out, and I was left alone Entirely alone

And at theof the roolass and cast their shifting shadows in a rooht

I didn’t go to her e it, and , her favourite verses read, but when the crowds of fans and friends turned up to pay their last respects, I wasn’t there to shake their hands and listen to their well-ht rief was a private one, too deep for sharing And anyway, I knew it didn’t matter whether I was at the church, because Katrina wasn’t there

She wasn’t anywhere