I haven’t seen them for over twenty years – they don’t do social media, so not even a photo - but the moment George opens the front door I know what their daughter’s death has done to them.  George attempts a smile in greeting, but his eyes are leaden.  Louise hovers behind him in the hallway;  clearly it has taken every ounce of energy she possesses even to follow him to the door.   

Has my visit today been a mistake?   

‘It’s so lovely to see you again,’ George says, ushering me in. 

‘Yes, it’s so good to….it’s been such a long…’  Louise’s words trail away into nothingness.  She stares at me hazily, as if reaching for a distant memory.    

Pete and I had first got to know George and Louise when our daughters, then aged seven, had become schoolfriends  in the mid-nineties.  Our two families had quickly become close,  but we’d moved away some years later when Pete landed a job in Manchester, and eventually we’d lost touch.   But I remember their daughter Sara well;  a quiet, wise child with a mop of red curls, a delicious giggle and an engaging smile.   Sara and our daughter Maisie had been inseparable back then, so when Sara’s brother Jamie posted on social media that his sister had died suddenly from cancer aged just thirty-two, Maisie had called me to let me know. 

‘It’s so awful, Mum,’ she had whispered, her voice thin with shock. ‘I can’t take it in.’ 

George and Louise were still living in Scotland, apparently.  So I called them.  Told them how desperately sorry I was.  I wrote, sent flowers, knowing nothing I could do would ever be enough.   

After all, how could it be? 

Now, two months later, I was in Glasgow visiting an old friend, and I’d messaged to see whether they would like me to visit.   I still remembered how supportive Louise had been when my mother had died suddenly  all those years ago.   Pete had been  away on assignment and Louise had swung into action, picking Maisie up from school, filling the fridge and hanging out washing while I huddled under a blanket on the sofa, immobilised by grief.  Now, I wanted to offer George and Louise some comfort.   It felt like the very least I could do. 

In the narrow hallway is a neat row of shoes.  I remove my own shoes, allowing my feet to sink into the soft, sand-coloured carpet.  Already, I sense I am entering a hallowed space.  The house is not at all as I remember it.  Once a noisy, chaotic family home filled with laughter and the clutter of daily life, it’s immaculate.  It feels strangely hollowed out, somehow.   In the living room is a glass coffee table edged with highly-polished chrome;  not a speck of dust, nor even the trace of a fingerprint marks its surface.   George and Louise sit side by side on the sofa, looking neither at each other, nor at me.  How many hours must they have spent like this, in silent and agonising vigil, in consulting rooms, in hospital corridors?  

On the wall behind the sofa is a photo of Sara.   She looks about twenty, her hair straighter than I remember it, but her smile is just the same.  I am relieved George and Louise cannot see the photo from where they sit, that I am spared the ordeal of witnessing their hearts skewered afresh by this image of their daughter lit by soft evening sunshine.  

How cowardly of me.    

I fill the air with vacuous commentary on the weather, the traffic, the health of their houseplants.  I have no idea where to begin. 

But soon we are catching up in earnest, skimming lightly across the past twenty-odd years.  We are racing to reconnect, if only in order to  get to the point.  To  talk about the only thing we can talk about.   

I tell them how distressed Maisie had been to hear of Sara’s death.  Almost as if relieved, they begin: 

Sara was always so cheerful, such fun to be around –  

 Do you remember when –  

 Oh yes, that time when she – 

 But once she became ill it all just –  

 Her friends were great – 

 They all rallied round -  

Jamie was so good with her -

She was so brave, despite it all -

 Tiny, painful phrases, haltingly uttered, thickened with grief.  Louise frequently loses her train of thought and stares blankly at the wall.   

She was doing so well –  

 Loved her job –  

 She was born to be a journalist –  

 It’s all she ever wanted to do -  

 Loved all the travel –  

 Always let us know where she was -

 No matter how busy she was, she always - 

 It’s an incantation,  this rhythmic, desolate recounting of their daughter’s life, the saddest of laments treading a precarious path between solace and pain.  I swallow back the tears;  they must not see me cry.  

The evening wears on, our conversation lapping in and out like the tide;  spurts of joyful recollection followed by exhausted whispers of grief.  And always, between and beyond the words, the strangest of silences.  It fills the room, a soundless echo pressing in on us as we grapple with how to talk about the loss of their child.  How not to talk about the loss of their child.  But surely this is the only conversation we can have, for what else matters now?    And all at once I know what this silence is. 

It is the sound of absence.

 And so what remains, now, of my friends?    The George of old, the exuberant, passionate documentary film-maker with a sharp wit and hearty laugh?  He has been eviscerated by grief.  And Louise?  The energetic, creative art teacher with an infectious sense of fun?  She has vanished.   The tragedy that took Sara has, in a second cruel swipe, taken them too.   The exhaustion of a daily trudging through pain and loss has stolen them away -  from themselves, from the world, possibly even from each other.    

After an hour, I sense they are tired.  I already know my visit, though brief, will have left them utterly depleted;  they have spent much of our time together trying not to cry. 

My phone announces the arrival of my taxi.   It is dark;  the predicted rain has set in.   I shrug on my coat, push my feet into my shoes and hug each of them in turn, promising to visit again.   Overwhelmed with sadness at leaving them, I grasp at inadequate platitudes:

Don’t forget – if there’s anything we can do, please don’t hesitate -  

Just pick up the phone anytime -

Pete sends his love -  

We’ll be in touch -  

 And then I push my umbrella against the strengthening wind and make a dash for it.   As the taxi turns the corner I look back through rain-beaded windows to where they stand on the doorstep, waving.    And there I must abandon them, tethered to their tragedy, together and alone. 

I already know they will go straight to bed, drained of what little energy they have left. 

The apartment  is empty when I return;  doubtless my friend will have taken her boisterous Jack Russell for his evening walk.  Wearily,  I flop down onto the sofa, hug a cushion to my chest.  Tears had threatened more than once during my visit, and yet now in the luxury of solitude, I am numb.  Instinctively, I reach for my phone.   I must speak to Maisie.  She will be waiting for my call.    But even as I wait for her to pick up, I know the reality is that the need is mine, not hers.  The truth, the grim, inescapable, unpleasant little truth is that right now I need to hear my daughter’s voice.   To remind myself that it isn’t me, that it isn’t Pete.   

That it isn’t us. 

Maisie answers immediately.  ‘Hi Mum,’ she says.  ‘How did it go?’   At the sound of her voice, a warm flood of  relief engulfs my entire being, and at last the tears begin to flow.