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Bemused, I watched Dylan as he locked the front door. I’d missed something while I was distracted by the strange scent in the hallway, but I had no idea what and it was too exhausting to think through clearly. The white noise was overwhelming my intuition.

Dylan slid on a pair of mirrored aviator shades and climbed into the car beside me, his expression closed. “I think this is top-down weather, don’t you?” he said almost to himself and pressed a button. The roof slowly drew back so we were bathed in sunshine. “There are some sunglasses and a hat in the glove box. You’ll probably need them.”

I found them as Doctor Dyl eased the car into reverse and backed onto the road.

“Could you bear to listen to some music?” he asked.

I shrugged in response. Before the awfulness, I loved music. All music. My mother and father lived for their music—Mum was an accomplished cellist; Daddy, a gifted pianist. And their passion was now mine. But my chest tightened at the thought of listening to anything other than the white noise in my head.

Dylan pressed a button on the steering wheel and pulsing rock blasted through the space between us. It was an assault. Flinching, I cowered in my seat trying to flee the noise. It was unbearable. Tears pooled in my eyes and my throat closed as I panicked.

He switched it off immediately. “Not a good idea,” he muttered. “Sorry,” he added, his voice a little louder for my benefit.

We drove in silence as I curled up in the seat, squeezing my eyes closed behind the sunglasses and fighting back tears.

Half an hour later, we pulled into the car park at a monumental IKEA store in northwest London.

“Hell, it’s heaving. Are you really up to this, Emily?”

Nodding once because I didn’t trust my voice, I opened the car door before Dylan could change his mind.

“Okay, then,” I heard him utter as he got out of the car.

I trailed after him into the store. I hadn’t been in a crowd since the funeral, and there were people everywhere. The white noise hummed and helped my detachment as I stood on the escalators, but I was determined to complete this task rather than think about my lost birthday.

“Well done,” Dylan said when we were finished and back in the car. The furniture had been purchased and assigned to the delivery company, and I’d managed to choose curtains, several prints for the walls, and bedding—floral and pretty, with roller blinds in pink. He started the car and we set off back to Chiswick. “You did extraordinarily well.”

Dylan had been overly generous. “Go mad, Emily. This is your home and I want it to be the way you want it.”

Now that I was sitting in the car, my exhaustion took hold and I couldn’t form a coherent sentence. Far from doing “extraordinarily well,” it had taken every gram of energy to nod and point and make the right noises at the appropriate times when, really, I just felt nothing. I’d floated through the store as if in a trance, like a ghost, but dead on the inside.

I stared out the car window at the drab houses lining the road. The IKEA trip had only illustrated to me just how detached I’d become, how removed I was from everything. I knew I might seem fine on the outside, but on the inside, there was nothing.

I should be with them.

I squeezed my eyes shut and shook off the thought.

“Paint or paper?” Dylan asked, interrupting my zombie-like state.

I turned to look at him, not understanding what he was referring to.

“For the walls. Do you want to paint them or wallpaper them? I’d better warn you, I’ve never papered a wall in my life, but I’m willing to give it a go.”

“Oh,” I said, realizing we’d stopped in the car park at a DIY superstore. “Paint, please.” Marshaling my strength once more, I followed Dylan inside.

I chose two tones for the walls—a warm pale-rose color and a bright candy pink—and a smaller tin of gold metallic paint.

“What’s with the gold?” Dylan inquired.

“Leaves.”

He gave me a quizzical look as we queued at the checkout to pay.

“I’m going to paint golden leaves on top of the pale pink.”

“Okay,” he said, though there was a waver of doubt in his voice. “I’ve got this. You might want to find a smaller brush to do the leaves.”

It was after three o’clock when we returned to his house in Chiswick.