Contents
title page
dedication
prologue
“mummy?”
chapter 1
chapter 2
chapter 3
chapter 4
chapter 5
chapter 6
chapter 7
chapter 8
chapter 9
chapter 10
chapter 11
“double-promise for ever and ever, amen?”
chapter 12
chapter 13
chapter 14
chapter 15
“he doesn’t look like a monster”
chapter 16
chapter 17
chapter 18
chapter 19
chapter 20
“you have to kiss luke too”
chapter 21
chapter 22
chapter 23
chapter 24
chapter 25
chapter 26
“tell me again, please tell me again”
chapter 27
chapter 28
chapter 29
chapter 30
chapter 31
chapter 32
chapter 33
chapter 34
chapter 35
chapter 36
chapter 37
“i’m not precious, i’m tegan”
chapter 38
chapter 39
“you can call me tiga if you want”
chapter 40
chapter 41
chapter 42
chapter 43
chapter 44
chapter 45
chapter 46
chapter 47
“are you going to be mummy ryn’s boyfriend?”
chapter 48
about the author
sometimes the right book is just waiting for the right…
copyright
thank you
To my wonderful family and friends. You know who you are.
prologue
To be honest, I’d been tired for so long I don’t remember, not accurately, when I realized something serious was wrong with me. I put up with it, though. Told myself I needed more rest and that it would pass. But it didn’t. No matter how much I slept I was always tired. It wasn’t until Tegan asked me to go to the doctor that I realized. My four-year-old actually voiced what I couldn’t—wouldn’t—face, the simple fact that I wasn’t myself anymore. She’d gotten tired of me being too exhausted to play with her. Of me having nosebleeds. Of me being breathless after even the smallest amount of exertion. “Mummy, if you go to the doctor she can make you better,” she said one day out of the blue. Just said it, and I did it.
I sat in the doctor’s office, told her what was wrong, and she did a blood test. Then called me in for more tests. More tests with names and words I’d heard on the medical shows, words that never had a happy ending on TV. But they couldn’t truly have anything to do with me. Not really. The doctors were eliminating possibilities.
Then, I got the call. Even then…And even when she told me…When the doctor said she was sorry and started talking about treatments and prognosis, I didn’t believe it.
No, that’s not right. I did believe it. I just didn’t understand. Not why. Not how. Not me.
It took a good few days for what I’d been told to sink in. Every second counted, they said, but I still couldn’t comprehend. I didn’t look that ill. A little paler, a little slower, but not really and truly ill. I kept thinking they were wrong. You hear about it all the time, the wrong diagnosis, people defying the doctors’ theories, finding out they had glandular fever instead of…
About a week later, on my way to work, I got to the train station early, mega early, as usual. I sat on one of the benches and a woman came and stood beside me. She pulled her mobile out of her bag and made a call. When the person on the other end picked up and she said, “Hello, it’s Felicity Halliday’s mother here. I’m calling because she’s not very well and she won’t be coming to school today,” I fell apart. Just broke down in tears. It hit me then, right then, that I would never get the chance to make a call like that. I would not get to do a simple mum thing like call my daughter’s school. There were a million things I would never get to do again and that was one of them.
