I did not tell Cian about the gold. He found the receipt in the January, in the drawer with the bills, which is where I put everything I did not want to look at.
He never said a word to me about it.
He put it in his letter instead.
The funeral.
A woman I had never seen before came up to me at the back of the hall.
Late forties. Dark coat. She had clearly been crying and had clearly decided to stop before she got to me.
“My daughter got your son’s heart,” she said.
And then she put a sealed envelope into my hand.
“He asked me to give you this.”
And I knew the handwriting before I had turned it over.
The first line was:
***”Mum, there’s something you need to know about her.”***
The letter.
I did not open it at the funeral. I put it in my bag and did all the handshaking and the sandwiches, and I opened it at half past eleven that night at my own kitchen table.
