Mo closed his eyes and took a deep breath, every muscle in his face fighting tears. ‘I said that I wished she was dead because me and Mav would be better off without her. It wasn’t true, but I was so angry, Netta. There’d just been so many times when she’d let me down, and that performance was so important to me. I’d been practising for ages. God, it all seems so stupid now. I was such a little idiot.’
‘No, you weren’t,’ said Netta. ‘You were a little boy who needed his mum.’
‘I was a little boy who killed his mum.’
Netta shook her head sadly. ‘No, Mo, you couldn’t have. Tell me what happened.’
Mo took a deep breath. ‘When I saw that she’d read the diary, I panicked and hid it in my secret hiding place under the loose floorboard, where you found it. She’d been asleep when I got home from school that day and she was still sleeping when it was starting to get dark, so I made me and Mav some dinner and we both went to bed. The next morning she wasn’t up when I was getting ready, but I’d cooled off a bit and I wanted to say sorry to her for what I wrote. I went into her room and tried to wake her up, but I couldn’t.’
Netta’s eyes filled with tears, and she pressed her lips together to contain the sob waiting to escape. ‘Was she—’
Mo nodded. ‘She was so cold. I called an ambulance straight away but it was way too late.’
‘Do you know how she died?’
‘There were pills and stuff next to the bed. I heard the paramedics saying “suspected accidental overdose” and things like that. But I knew—Iknew—it wasn’t an accident. I knew she’d done it on purpose.’
‘Because of what you wrote?’
‘Yeah.’
An ache carved through Netta’s chest at the crack in Mo’s voice.
‘And then, straight after,’ he said, pulling himself together, ‘the cops took me and Mav to the police station and we spent the next seven years being bounced around different foster homes.’
‘Was it awful?’
‘You don’t want to know.’ Mo’s expression was grave. ‘As soon as I turned eighteen, I took guardianship over Mav and we got out on our own. I worked and saved until we could come over here. I just had to get as far away from it all as I could. And Mav needed a fresh start. His childhood was so shitty.’
‘So you’ve been looking after him his whole life, pretty much?’
‘It’s the least I could do,’ said Mo. ‘If it wasn’t for me, none of it would’ve happened.’
‘Mo, it wasn’t your fault.’
‘It was,’ he said, his certainty cemented into his jaw. ‘She was sensitive. She reallyfeltthings, more than most people do. She’d see sad things on the news and be in floods of tears. She would’ve read those words and spiralled. I know it.’
‘But, Mo, you were just a kid,’ Netta said. ‘Kids get angry with their parents all the time. She would’ve known you still loved her. You wouldn’t have been angry with her in the first place if you didn’t.’
Mo was silent, staring at the floor, his hands clasped tightly in his lap.
‘Mo, look at me.’ Netta dipped her head to make eye contact with him. ‘Mo.’
Finally, his shadowed eyes met hers.
‘It wasn’t your fault,’ she said.
‘But—’
‘It wasn’t your fault,’ she repeated gently.
‘Don’t.’ His voice held a spike of warning.
‘Did you ever find out what her actual cause of death was?’
‘No.’
‘Maybe you should try, Mo. It might take a while to get it, but wouldn’t it be worth it to get some closure? The pills might’ve had nothing to do with it.’
