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And Poppy was perfect. Perfect hair, perfect clothes. That’s who she was now—thatwoman. Though she wasn’t a far cry from the girl with the messy ponytail and loose plaid shirt carrying her battered acoustic guitar wherever she went, she was a tidier, adult version.

No Botox. It hadn’t been needed. She’d aged into an even better version of her youthful beauty. She was still in possession of porcelain-perfect skin with that natural ruddy glow in her cheeks. Her crystal blue eyes still twinkled. Her rosy mouth still carried mischief in its heart shape. She barely even looked tired, which was absurd with a child that age.

She was probably one of the mums who was always full of energy to plan exciting activities that were both educational and fun, always carrying a Tupperware full of fresh vegetables for her child to snack on, and always on time. She was already aligned with Susan within five minutes of arrival because Susan knew her own. She knew a perfect mum when she saw one.

Norah had never been that. She was always a bit late, always slovenly, always caught by surprise by World Book Day or Red Nose Day or any of the other days that were defined by sending your kid to school in some carefully handcrafted outfit you didn’t have the time to be fucking about with the night before.

Norah sat down at the kitchen table with her coffee. She’d have to open her laptop in a minute for work, but she felt sobeaten that she couldn’t face it yet. Poppy was back. And she was doing exactly what she’d done before, making Norah look a fool.

Norah eventually sighed and logged onto her customer service job at Flowers-To-Your-Door, a flower delivery service. The queue was already pretty deep.

Hi, I’m Norah. How can I help?she asked the first customer.

He proceeded to rant about how his delivery of roses was late for his mother’s birthday, causing her to have a full panic attack because she thought he’d forgotten. Norah thought the guy had bigger problems than late posies, but she offered him half his money back.

The next few complaints were not quite as dramatic, merely dreary. Norah could easily phone it in while thinking about other things. That was a mercy some days. But not today. She didn’t want to be alone with her thoughts today.

She didn’t want to think aboutthat.

Twenty Years Ago

Norah was late for school.

It was her mother’s fault. She was consumed with what to do with the leftovers from the funeral. Should she throw them out, try to give them to someone, or should they freeze them? Norah knew her mother didn’t want an answer; she just wanted to talk at Norah.

Norah had stood nodding and mirroring like a parrot, saying things like, ‘Mmm, thatisa lot of sausage rolls,’ until her mother released her.

Norah thought it was possible that in other families, they would have cried together over this monumental loss. But thatwas for functional types. In Norah’s house, they processed together via trivialities. If her mum was crying, she did it privately. Norah did the same. The shower was a good place for it, masking both sound and moist eyes.

But anyway, that was the reason that Norah was walking into Art and Design at twenty past nine. Mrs Kane noticed but only gave her a nod. The teachers had been told to ‘understand’ about her current situation. Norah didn’t know how far that understanding would extend.

It had been three weeks since her dad had departed the planet, but when would the grace period run out? Would she be expected to get her shit together after the funeral? When was the grieving meant to be over? When was everything supposed to be normal?

Norah sat down next to her friend, Joy. She looked over in surprise. ‘Oh. You came. Thought you might have fucked it off today.’

Joy was a casual friend, more due to table geography than anything else. She was slightly disconnected, but she was certainly unique, and Norah appreciated that about her. Joy had a very particular artistic style she called Contemporary Despair, where she took gothic figures of the past and put them in situations of modern ennui. She was currently painting a picture of Edgar Allan Poe trying to assemble Ikea furniture. Needless to say, her parents had not correctly anticipated their daughter’s personality at the time of naming.

‘I got waylaid,’ Norah explained vaguely.

She got out her latest project, a graphic novel she’d been working on for months. She was a bit stalled with it currently. It was the story of a girl who accidentally dug up an ancient alien artefact in her back garden that gave her super strength. Norah had started it without knowing where it went.

She felt stupid for attempting it now. But she’d gotten ambitious, and there was no going back. She’d put too much time into it. She couldn’t afford to drop it. There wasn’t time to start a fresh project without her grade going to shit. And she needed this grade. It was gonna take her to art school.

‘Yeah?’ Joy asked.

‘Yeah. Needed to chat to my mum about stuff,’ Norah told her.

Joy looked like she wanted to say something about that. But then she seemed to chicken out and went back to adding shade to an Allen key that Edgar was squeezing hard enough to draw blood from his palm.

Sometime later, paused mid-stroke and said, ‘Oh, that girl asked for you, by the way,’ she said.

‘What girl?’ Norah frowned.

‘That girl who does the thing.’

‘I know exactly who you mean now,’ Norah said dryly.

Joy frowned, trying to summon anything that might place this mystery figure. ‘You know, she’s like... That guitar player.’