Chapter 9
I sleep amazingly well that first night. It is all a bit of a tight squeeze, and all a bit foreign and strange, and the three of us are on our very best behavior. There is one moment, when Charlie goes to use the Mona Lisa while Luke clears up our dishes and I go into the wet room to change into my PJs, when I wonder what kind of madness has gripped me—is this an insane thing to be doing? And if the answer to that is yes, is it good insane or bad insane? Only time will tell.
When I wake up, though, it is a peaceful and gradual emergence into consciousness—a luxuriously slow process that involves lots of stretching and languid eye opening, and the comforting sensation of being wrapped up in cotton somewhere safe. It is a feeling I have not had for a very long time, and when I eventually drag myself up, I am awash with an unexpected sense of optimism. It is very early, and the birds are singing, and I have nowhere to be but here.
We all take it gently that morning, Luke showing me how to wrap and pack the remaining breakable items for the journey, Charlie bleary-eyed but happy as he clambers down his ladder, Betty clearly loving all the new human company.
Eventually, we are ready to leave, and Luke is settled in the driver’s seat up front. There are three seats there, and they all swivel around so they can face into the main cabin. I have packed away my bed, and on the small table next to me is one of Luke’s baseball caps, filled with crumpled-up pieces of paper. It is an exciting moment. We have decided that Charlie will choose, and I am doing a fake drumroll with my palms against the wood.
Charlie dips into the hat and pulls out a scrap—a scrap that will determine the next few days of our lives. Yes , I think, it is insane—but so far, so good.
“So,” says Luke from his swivel chair, “the deed is done. Where to, Captain?”
Charlie opens up the paper and frowns. Obviously not one of his, from the look on his face. “Erm... we’re going to Wuthering Heights?” he says eventually. “No idea where that is...”
It’s not one of mine either, so I look over to our driver for some clarification.
“Ah,” he says, grinning and looking slightly sheepish, “that’s from me. And no, it’s not a place. It’s a song. And a book. And a film. But for me, it’s a song... I just got a bit carried away last night.”
“And by ‘carried away,’ you mean you had two pints of that real ale with the weird name?” I reply.
“It’s called Scratchum’s Wobbling Frog, which I think is a perfectly reasonable name. But... yeah, maybe it did influence some of my choices? We can skip it if you like?”
“No way!” says Charlie so emphatically that Betty looks shocked and yips her disapproval. “First rule of Motorhome Club is... um... that doesn’t really work... but let’s do it! Isn’t it in Yorkshire, the book? Let’s go there! And also, while we’re making confessions, I had a drink last night too, so some of mine might be a bit random...”
“You had two glasses of prosecco!”
“Well, I’m just a lightweight, aren’t I, Mum? Not a professional like you! Yorkshire then?”
I nod, keen to move away from the subject of my drinking skills. Wuthering Heights ... I remember reading it when I was much younger. It was wild, and passionate, and, truth be told, a little bit creepy. I remember the sense of isolation, the way the Moors were almost a character in their own right. It felt like a landscape that could swallow you whole. I also remember that the Bronte family lived in a small town in Yorkshire, and wonder if we could combine the two and really get this magical quest off to a rip-roaring start. “Yes. Let’s do that,” I say. “Luke, head for Yorkshire—and we’ll look up the rest! Let the adventures begin!”
He gives me a jaunty salute and turns his chair around. We buckle up our seat belts, the various guidebooks and gazettes spread out on the table in front of us, my new laptop at the ready. Luke presses Play on his music system, and I hear what may or may not be Led Zeppelin coming from the speakers. Rock and roll at just after seven. The early start, he says, is the key to successful travel.
He drives slowly and carefully away from the field, and I wave at the donkeys as we pass their enclosure. I don’t look backward at our old home—I keep my eyes firmly forward, because I don’t want a random glimpse of the sofa to make me cry again. A quick glance at Charlie shows me he is too engrossed in a book about wild swimming to be having a moment of melancholy. Attaboy.
“Okay,” says Luke, lowering the music and navigating the motorhome onto the lane that runs into town, “I’m going to head for the A17 north, and once I hit that, the route is up to you guys. Choose whichever way you like—doesn’t matter if we make detours, get lost, go backward, drive in circles. The journey, my friends, is what matters!” He grins and looks delighted with it all. The music goes back on, and I find myself smiling too as I turn to my laptop.
Much to Charlie’s relief, Luke has a Wi-Fi setup that involves an antenna on the roof, a router, and a SIM card. I’m told it works pretty much anywhere there is a decent signal. It’s all frightfully clever and way beyond my understanding, but I take the blessing and go online. Luke has sent me links to a few specialist sites and blogs about motorhoming, where like-minded souls share tips and details of great spots to stop off. It is, I have been told, very important to find places where you can empty the waste tanks and charge up. I get busy researching the Brontes and the Moors and finding a fun route. I am looking forward to heading inland—I have lived by the sea for the whole of my life, and I love it. But now is a time for fresh experiences.
Sitting across from me, Charlie is now fascinated by a massive tome called The Modern Antiquarian . It looks well used.
“This is brilliant,” he says, staring at the pages. “It’s, like, got all of the stone circles and long barrows in it.”
“Cool. What’s a long barrow? Is it what giants use in their garden?”
“Ha-ha. No. Long barrows are, apparently, Neolithic structures. Some had bodies in them, some were chambers. Nobody really knows for sure exactly what they were used for, but there are some pretty excellent ones still around. I think I could quite get into this. There’s loads of Post-it notes in here too; reckon Luke’s a bit of a Druid on the side...”
I glance at the pile of books. Some of them are standard—road maps, guides to national parks, that kind of thing. But a few others are stranger—there’s one called Wild Ruins BC , another about Britain’s holiest places. A folded-up Great British Music Map ; the extremely encouraging Ye Olde Good Inn Guide . A veritable delight of weird unknown locations just waiting to be discovered. After a bit of research, I tell Luke to pull off onto a smaller road, deciding unilaterally that this is not a motorway kind of day. I’ve been living at a service station hotel for the last week, and the thrill of Costa Coffee in takeaway cups has worn off.
Between us, Charlie and I come up with a plan, and we make our first stop-off after a solid three hours of driving, at a small town in the Peak District called Bakewell. It is extremely pretty, with hilly streets and quaint buildings made of mellow stone, and—the star attraction as far as Charlie is concerned—it is the home of the famed Bakewell pudding.
We park the van and stroll into the town center, replenishing ourselves with cake and old-fashioned homemade lemonade. It is another scorcher of a day, so hot on the pavement that Luke carries Betty in his arms so her tiny paws don’t get burned.
The town is bustling, and we meander our way up to the churchyard. Charlie becomes our tour guide and informs us that the church has Saxon origins, is Grade 1 listed, and has fine medieval misericords. I am unsure as to what misericords are, and I suspect Charlie is as well, so I do not inquire. He stays outside with Betty, inspecting the Saxon crosses and reading the gravestones.
The church itself is blessedly cool and shady, silent apart from the low-level talk of the few visitors inside its walls. I admire the stained-glass windows and the huge baptismal font, then stand and stare at the tombs of local dignitaries of centuries gone by. Elaborately carved versions of their living selves are draped across the top, as though protecting them. It is strangely sobering, imagining them as real people, with lives and hopes and dreams and disappointments and triumphs. Now forever trapped in alabaster.
I shake off the momentary melancholy and look around for Luke. I see him standing quietly in front of a lit candle, its flickering flame vivid in the dim lighting. A few others dance around it, and I wonder what their stories are—for every light that shines, there will be a prayer, a promise, a plea.
Luke closes his eyes and bows his head, and I quickly avert my gaze. It feels as though I am intruding on a deeply personal moment, and I move away, giving him space. We may technically live together, but I understand that I barely know this man—he is like one of those alabaster carvings; I can see the outside, but I have no idea what formed him, what lies beneath. Perhaps I will find that out as our lives walk parallel lines, or perhaps I will not—that is another mystery yet to unfold.
When we have all had our fill of culture, we stock up on picnic items and head off to our next stop. This is a place that Charlie suggested after becoming deeply enthused by the concept of wild swimming, and we couldn’t have chosen a better day for it. The drive is sometimes slightly terrifying, through narrow, winding roads and a pine forest, but Luke assures me he has navigated worse.
We all put our swimming gear on, and Charlie hefts a backpack full of towels and snacks and drinks. It feels a little like we are on holiday, and I wonder if we can possibly maintain this level of excitement for the whole trip. Which of us, I ponder, will be the first to say, “Nah, I’m a bit tired, might just crash out in bed today”? From the looks of Charlie as he sprints ahead along the path with Betty at his heels, it won’t be him.
“He seems to be having fun,” says Luke, walking by my side as we follow the trail. We are heading for a pool that is apparently tucked away on the River Derwent, near to the neighboring reservoir. The air is thick and warm, the trees lining the way casting welcome shade, sheep grazing nearby.
“He does,” I agree. “Though with Charlie, possibly all teenagers, there does come a point when their batteries run out. At that point, he’s likely to just fall asleep, or get really grumpy and blame me for everything, from the fact that he has a blister through to global warming.”
“Ha! Well, to be honest, that probably is your fault... So, how are you feeling?”
“Apart from hot? I’m okay, thank you. It’s all a bit strange, obviously, but I think this is the perfect distraction for us. I can’t tell you how grateful I am for you giving us this opportunity. I mean, without you I’d have never tasted that Bakewell...”
“This is true. I am the Patron Saint of Women Who Need Cake. We’ll add that to the mission statement, shall we? Everywhere we stop off, we have to find cake.”
I laugh and tell him I am all for it.
We walk in companionable silence until we reach an old stone bridge, watching as Charlie tears off his outer layers and follows Betty into the water. She clearly loves to swim, and her little brown head is bobbing around like a miniature seal. Charlie jumps in after her and shrieks in a very un-macho way.
“It’s COLD!” he yells, splashing around. “And deep! It’s brilliant!”
We clamber down to the rocks at the side of the riverbank and strip down to our swimmers. I feel a small sliver of embarrassment and wonder why—I am no supermodel, but there is nothing going on beneath my clothes that is too disgusting. Just a woman thing, I suppose—we’re never quite happy with ourselves, are we?
Luke seems to have no such qualms and is almost as fast as Charlie at tugging his T-shirt over his head and ditching his jeans. There is a moment, as he stands by the riverbank, trunks lying low on his hips, when I literally do a double take. He is like a work of art, tan skin, broad shoulders, the lean muscle you get from an active lifestyle rather than a gym. I cover my fluster by turning around and folding all of our cast-aside clothes into neat piles.
By the time I have finished, Luke has jumped in as well, and I go next. The shock of the chill water makes me squeal, but within seconds I adjust and start to absolutely love it. The water is clear and cool and completely refreshing, a gentle current adding a rhythmic flow. We are the only people here in this tiny paradise, surrounded by the majestic hills of the Peak District, banked by lush grass and the hum of insect life.
I lie on my back and float, gazing up at the pastel-blue sky, sun warm against my skin, listening to the sublime song of the skylarks. It is a moment of the purest peace: knowing that Charlie is safe and well and happy, that I am exactly where I need to be, that I have nothing else I should be doing right now.
That lasts for about thirty seconds, before Charlie dive-bombs next to me and creates a mini-whirlpool of noise and splattered river water. I respond by holding his head underneath the surface, and Betty barks as she darts around us in circles. The peace is over, but the fun has begun.
We end our swim with a lazy picnic lunch at the side of the river, Betty curled up in a ball beneath a tree. It is idyllic, and we spend way too much time there. I remind myself that there is no schedule, that we are not on anybody’s clock, that the day is ours to waste as much of as we like. It takes some adjustment, after years of work and school runs and carefully timed comings and goings, but I hope I can settle into it. One of the points of this journey is to explore a different way of living, a different way of being—and step one seems to be learning to relax.
The downside of that attitude is that by the time we reach Haworth, the Bronte village, we are too late to go into the museum. We stand outside, though, and look up at the building. It is the parsonage where Emily, Charlotte, and Anne lived with their brother when their father was the reverend at the nearby church. Back then, it must have been a strange place—an industrial town, but perched on the edge of wild, open moorland, bleak and beautiful at the same time. The building itself is handsome, but somehow also foreboding—to me, there is a darkness to it, the brickwork, the rigid structure of the place. I try to imagine those three women there, to picture Emily, her physical life so small, but her emotional and creative world so vast. I gaze up at the parsonage from the neat gardens outside, and Charlie says: “You’re going to say, ‘Just imagine... ,’ aren’t you?”
It is a joke between us—every time I have dragged him around a historic house or taken him to clamber over ruined castle walls, I inevitably say, “Just imagine this the way it was!” and try to recreate some of the scenes from the past. Charlie plays along up to a point, but usually gets bored pretty soon and plays Candy Crush instead.
“I’m just imagining myself, love. Such amazing talent that lived in this one building. I keep looking up at those windows and picturing them looking back out at me...”
He gives me a look that says, Yeah, right, weirdo , and leaves me to it.
The heat of the day has faded, but the sun is still bright, the sky clear. We decide to go on a signposted walk from the parsonage across the moor to Top Withens, the place that is thought to have inspired Wuthering Heights .
It is a long trek, but breathtaking. The moors are wild, exposed, somehow alien—it is easy to imagine them in winter, windblown and snow-scattered, haunted by Cathy and Heathcliff. We pass the Bronte Waterfall, climb steep hills, cross stepping-stones, and spot kestrels gliding overhead. Iridescent dragonflies skim over water, and the landscape is brightened with luscious foxgloves, wild roses, and honeysuckle. Even though we are not far from civilization, it is eerily quiet out here.
The farmhouse itself is a ruin, but the views are amazing. Again I find myself “just imagining” Emily sitting out here, soaking in the primeval terrain, the wildlife, the sounds and scents of nature, feeding them all into her work. Charlie slightly ruins the moment by playing the Kate Bush song about Wuthering Heights on his phone, which makes me laugh but leaves Luke with a slightly startled expression. He is quiet as we make the long trek back to the village.
We decide on a pub dinner, and once we are settled in a corner seat, Betty promptly falls asleep after a bowl of water and some gravy bones. She has been carried for some of the walk but is clearly exhausted, as is Charlie. Mid-conversation, he slumps back against his velvet-topped seat and closes his eyes. Poor baby—he’s gotten more exercise today than he usually does in a month. As have I, and I am feeling it in my knees.
“Are you wiped out?” asks Luke, smiling at me over his pint of shandy.
“Yeah,” I reply, “but in a good way. Is it always like this?”
“No,” he says, amused. “Nobody could keep this up for long! When I settle somewhere for a while, like I was when we met, I take it much more slowly. I know I have days or weeks to explore, so there’s no need for a list, or a hat... I set my own pace. And, before you ask, no, this isn’t an inconvenience. I’m enjoying it. I like my lifestyle, but it can be a bit melancholy—seeing amazing things with nobody there to share them with. So this is a bit of a holiday for me as well. If I’d been on my own, I wouldn’t have been able to laugh my arse off watching you dance around the moor to ‘Wuthering Heights,’ would I?”
“Fair point. I should have been a ballerina, really, not an office manager in a carpet company.”
Those words feel strange coming out of my mouth. Only a matter of days ago, that’s exactly what I was—and yet it already feels like a lifetime ago. A different me, in a different world.
“Can I ask you about money?” I say, needing to broach the subject.
“Well, money is a coin- and note-based form of currency, commonly used around the world in exchange for goods and services.”
“Thank you for that. You need to come up with some new material. And you know what I mean. I want to contribute—the cost of the gas, the food, things like this dinner.”
I am so used to counting every penny that a pub meal feels like a huge extravagance, even though I am probably the least poor I have been for years. I have a month’s worth of wages in the bank and no rent to pay, and the layoff settlement should arrive within the next six weeks. I am relatively rich, by my standards, and I don’t want to be a parasite.
“You can if you want to,” he replies slowly. “But it’s not necessary. Money isn’t really a problem for me.”
“Oh. Are you one of those eccentric millionaires then? I always wanted to be one of those when I grew up.”
“Something like that. It’s not an issue—do whatever makes you feel comfortable.”
He is an interesting man, Luke Henderson. An enigma wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a really tricky cryptic crossword puzzle. Not exactly evasive, but definitely private. Kind, thoughtful, and maybe a tiny bit sad as well.
We are all guilty of making assumptions about people, aren’t we? Based on the way they look or live or talk. When you meet a man in his middle years living in a mobile home, you assume he hasn’t led what you might think of as a traditionally successful life—but Luke is blowing all of that out of the water. The part of my mind that likes to make up stories about people is going bananas.
Our food arrives, and Charlie immediately rouses himself as the aroma of sausage and mash nears his nostrils. By the time we finish up and head back to the motorhome, it is almost dark—that magical time in summer when the light seems to shimmer between day and night. We arrive at the site we have booked half an hour later. Luke shows me how to hook up the van to charge the leisure battery and advises us all to make the most of the facilities at the site. Taking a shower in a full-sized cubicle, using washing machines, and enjoying the luxury of a toilet you don’t have to empty yourself are all fantastic opportunities to be snapped up, he assures us.
Charlie ignores all this and lies on the grass next to the van instead. He is gazing up at the sky in some kind of exhausted trance, so I leave him to it while I visit the small camp shop and the facilities block.
The place is still lively, lots of families enjoying themselves, toddlers riding bikes around the lit pathways, couples sitting outside their motorhomes and caravans, drinking and chatting. I hear different types of music as I wander through, everything from Wham! to something classical with strings. It is lovely, flush with a sense of communal pleasure. There are tents pitched over in a nearby field, and I wonder if there is a hierarchy—massive motorhomes at the top and two-man pop-ups at the bottom, or maybe vice versa?
I take a nice long shower and get straight into my PJs and flip-flops, because I am a party animal like that. The changing rooms have hair dryers, which I use with a sense of wonder—mine was lost in the landslide, and I fear I have already gone feral. Somehow, wild and messy hair doesn’t seem at all inappropriate when you’re on the road. I have always dressed as smartly as I needed to for work, but I do feel a sense of relief at being able to abandon early-morning mascara disasters and tights and high heels.
I meet Luke back at our place, and he has set up the camping table and chairs. He has a can of his Wobbling Frog out and a glass of wine for me. I get my laptop from the motorhome, thinking I might do some research about tomorrow, and then sink down into the seat gratefully, taking a sip and sighing in contentment. “This is really nice, isn’t it?” I remark, gesturing around us. “Everyone seems really laid-back and happy and mellow.”
“Don’t let it fool you,” Luke replies, grinning, his teeth white against the evening darkness. “They can turn. If you’re driving up front in a motorhome, and you see another one on the road, you have to wave at each other. It’s a rule. If you don’t, they might actually hunt you down and kill you.”
“Oh. Right. Best to be polite, then. Did you luxuriate in the shower?”
“Not as much as I’d have liked. Got chatting to someone—occupational hazard at campsites. People can talk about their motorhomes for hours on end. But it was quite interesting; he has solar panels on his, which I’ve been thinking about for a while.”
“Wow. You really can get everything with them, can’t you?”
“Oh yes. Some have Jacuzzis and saunas and built-in champagne bars.”
“Really?”
“No. But you sounded hopeful.”
“I’m only flesh and blood, you know.”
We smile at each other, and I realize that he is not the only one who has been lonely. I can’t say that I have missed this—adult conversation, banter—because I have never really had it. I was still a child myself when I was with Rob, and since then it has only been me and Charlie. I find that I am enjoying it, a lot. Maybe too much.
Charlie stands up, stretches and groans, and says: “I’m off to bed. Gonna FaceTime Dad for a bit and then crash. Laters, old people. Don’t get too drunk.”
He disappears back into the motorhome, and Betty follows him. They are deeply in love with each other, those two.
“So,” says Luke, once we are alone again. “What’s the story with his dad? Is he still in his life? If you don’t mind me asking. Don’t feel obliged.”
I bite my lip and wonder if I do mind. I decide that I don’t, and reply: “Well, it’s a story as old as time—boy meets girl. Girl gets pregnant at eighteen. Boy dumps girl to backpack around Europe and is never seen again.”
“Right. That must have been tough, doing it all on your own.”
“It had its moments,” I admit, “and for most of it, I had no clue what I was doing. The first baby I ever held was my own. And yes, Rob is still in Charlie’s life—in a way. Another story as old as time, I suppose—the absent parent gets to be the fun one, don’t they? That can sting a bit, if I’m honest. But mainly... it’s been great. I mean, Charlie’s great.”
“He certainly is. You did a great job raising him, so, whatever you did, you did it right.”
I pause and let that soak in. When you’re a single parent, you focus so much on your failures—on what you can’t give them, on what you get wrong, on every consequence of every decision you make. It’s easy to get wrapped up in that, to feel as though you have never been enough. That you have let them down in some way, haven’t given them the perfect family, the perfect life.
But the truth is that the perfect family doesn’t exist—and all parents make mistakes, single or not. I know that logically, but don’t always feel it. Hearing someone else point it out feels good, like a balm applied to a sore spot I’ve had for so long I’ve just learned how to ignore it. “Thank you,” I say simply.
“And what about you?” Luke asks. “Charlie’s great, but how did all of that affect you?”
I bite my lip and realize that’s a tough question to answer. It’s also one that nobody has really asked before. I was so young back then, and I’m never quite sure what my life would have looked like if I hadn’t been forced to deal with so much, so soon. “That’s hard to explain,” I reply. “Sometimes it all seems so long ago I can barely remember it. But I suppose it shaped me—in good ways and bad ways. The bad ways are... well, the clue’s in the name, I think. I worry a lot. I find it hard to relax, like I always have to be on guard duty. But the good ways—well, I try to focus on those. It made me independent and resilient. It made me realize how much I was capable of, maybe... I don’t know. I’m in transition at the moment, Luke, so you can’t expect sensible answers!”
“In transition...,” he says quietly. “That’s a good way of putting it.”
We spend a few moments in silence, sipping our drinks and relaxing in the still-warm evening air, until he says: “I chose ‘Wuthering Heights’ because it was my daughter’s favorite song. She was called Katie, and her grandmother was a huge Kate Bush fan. She used to play it for Jenny all the time, telling her she was named after her—she wasn’t, but that didn’t matter. They watched the video, that old one, and after that, whenever she could, Katie would grab a sheet or a towel and dance around to it, wafting it around like a cape. She always got the words a bit wrong, though, and she used to sing, ‘It’s me, I’m a tree.’ It was... lovely.”
He is staring away from me as he talks, one hand gripping his beer a little too tightly. He is smiling at the memory, the sides of his eyes crinkling, but there is no mistaking the sadness of his tone. Or his use of past tense.
“What happened?” I ask quietly, washed with an icy sense of dread. I know what is likely to come next and I feel my heart start to splinter.
“She died four years ago. She was only nine. A type of leukemia called ALL.”
His voice is low, the words clipped, the sentences brutally short. This is, quite obviously, hard for him to talk about.
“I’m so sorry, Luke. What was she like?”
He looks at me in surprise and shakes his head slightly. “Nobody ever asks that,” he says. “They’re usually just too freaked out. That’s one of the reasons I stopped talking to people about it. Stopped talking to people at all really... but she was perfect: funny, clever, kind. Full of life, even when the treatments were torturing her. She had her mum’s blond hair, and my eyes, and her own sense of mischief. Yeah. She was perfect.”
The look on his face is a heartrending combination of pain and pride, and I swallow the lump that starts to form in my throat as I reply.
“She sounds it. I’d love to see a picture of her sometime.”
“I have some,” he replies, sounding hesitant. “Maybe I’ll show you one day.” He stands up abruptly, knocking his can to the ground and cursing as he retrieves it, the remaining beer fizzing out onto the grass. He hovers above me, looking stern, and says: “Right. That’s me done for the night.”
He is tense, his mouth a grim line, his eyes flickering from side to side as though he is looking for a threat. I reach up, place one of my hands on his. I wind our fingers together and say: “Thank you for telling me about Katie.”
He doesn’t meet my eyes, but I feel a returning squeeze of pressure before he pulls his hand from mine, nods firmly, and heads inside. He pauses on the steps and says: “Sorry if it was too much. I don’t know why I told you all that. Maybe because you’d told me about your situation. Maybe just because I feel... like I can trust you.”
He doesn’t give me the chance to reply, just disappears quickly inside, as though embarrassed by the whole thing. He feels like he can trust me... I don’t underestimate the power of those words. Trust is not a thing to be trifled with. I can’t remember the last time I totally trusted another adult human being, and I realize that I am starting to trust Luke. I at least attempted to give him a genuine answer to his questions, instead of retreating to my default setting of making everything into a joke.
I stay where I am. It’s been an unexpectedly emotional evening. I am sad and shocked and worried I might cry. It is not my grief to hijack, and although I briefly wonder if I should go inside and check on him, I know that Luke needs some space. It seemed to take a physically tangible toll on him, talking about it at all, and he might need a few minutes alone.
I sip my wine and, as soon as I am sure he is not going to come back out, allow the tears I have been clenching to roll down my face. For Luke, for Katie, for his wife. For everyone who has suffered such an unimaginable loss. My life has not been easy, but Charlie is tucked up in bed, safe and happy, and that makes me the luckiest woman on earth.