What does a person think about on the morning their mother dies? What will I remember? Some people get a call from a relative, or the hospital. Some people are there, at the deathbed, to hear, miss, hate or cherish those last moments. I didn’t get any of that.

Death happens, and to some it’s a shock, to others a release, but I haven’t found the word yet. Is there a word for it? Maybe there are a lot of words for it. Maybe I need to use all those words.

Writing helps. My therapist has taught me that. She used the analogy of trepanning. ‘Let the evil spirit out. It will be painful. It will be against your instincts.’ I made some lame joke about her boring holes into my skull, but she didn’t laugh. ‘You’re using humour to deflect attention,’ she said. ‘Release is against your instincts, feeling pain and acknowledging injury – it’s against your instincts. It’s not how you brought yourself up.’ I must have paled, because that line did bore right into me. I did Bring Myself Up. I am self-made. But, sometimes – often – especially now, I feel like a child’s first attempt at pottery – all misshapen and dented. The kind of thing only a mother would be proud of.

Let me tell you about my mum. Let me pull her out of this snarl, and set her upright in front of you. It’s important that she’s rescued from the mess her life became. She wasn’t just a mess. She wasn’t always a mess. She was wonderful. She was tall, like me, and lean. She looked like someone who ran, someone who worked out, even though she didn’t. I’ve inherited that from her. I’m very lucky.

When I was small we would dance together. She had all these old records, singles from the 80s and 90s, 12 inches and albums. She’d put them on her little turntable and we’d dance to them – even the things you couldn’t really dance to, like Nirvana and this other band called Chinaski. She was related to the singer somehow. I forget how. When she danced she’d shake her head and her hair – wavy pre-Raphaelite hair – would show all it’s different russety shades. The light would come in through the kitchen window and shine through her hair like a stained-glass window. I thought she was beautiful. She was beautiful.

She sometimes used to pick me up from primary school and, when she did, she always wore dresses or skirts and blouses, never trousers, and her lean legs were pretty as a fawn’s. Her skin was this beautiful matte golden colour, with little freckles, like a sprinkling of nutmeg, over her nose. I was so proud to be seen with her! Proud and loved and warm. Other kids’ mothers were dumpy, or angry, or just not there, but my mum was so vivid. She was someone you remembered. Just looking at her did you good.

We used to go to Scarborough on holidays with Auntie K and her daughters (my mum’s step-auntie, really, so my great aunt). K’s boyfriend then was a big man called Granville who managed a hotel – The Windsor Castle it was called – and we’d stay for free – all crammed into two adjoining rooms. Mum kept all her 2p’s aside so I could use them in the penny falls at the arcade. At night we’d stay up in the hotel bar, and Granville would make sure we had all the Pepsi we could drink. Mum and Auntie K might have a few drinks and sing. They both had lovely singing voices. The first time I heard Dusty Springfield, I thought, That’s my mum!

It was just me and Mum, and it was perfect that way. We were poor, but so was everyone we knew, and at least my mum had a job – she worked as a receptionist at a dentist’s surgery in town, and sometimes in a pub at night. She was very particular about her appearance – ironed hems, lacquered nails. Hair always washed and shiny. A little slick of lipstick.

Then she fell in love. She fell hard.

Right from the start I didn’t like him. I knew he was a Bad Man. And with him around, things changed. She stopped singing. She started drinking more. One day I came back from school and she’d cut her hair off. I know it sounds silly, but it was as if all her strength was in that hair, and when she had it cut into a nondescript mum-helmet she started fading, fading fast. I date her decline from the haircut. The long, passive slide, hastened by The Bad Man, into what was the rest of her life.

I was thinking about her hair when the policeman was talking to me through the bathroom door, those glossy waves with the little glints of copper and gold. It seemed to hang in front of my eyes, beautifully, impossibly bright, and I wanted to tell him all about her: about her laugh and how she danced, about Scarborough, and how, on the beach, she’d let me bury her in the sand and then lurch out like a monster to play-scare me. She would be younger than I am now. Just a kid herself really, trying her best to raise me right, working hard to make me happy. I wanted them to understand, you know? This was not just a dead woman with a stretched-out broken neck. This was my mum, with her long legs and her wide smile and her ability to raise one eyebrow, and her dirty laugh and her glorious, glorious hair. You can’t explain that to people though, can you? Not to the police anyway.

Someone can just... die. Someone can just cease to exist. Blink and they’re gone. The last time I saw my mum, she’d been firing on all cylinders, spitting gin and slinging barbs, and now what? She went for a walk and died. She was there, and now she’s not. Someone that vivid paled away to nothing? How can something natural feel so insane?

In the mortuary, I was alone with her one last time. But she didn’t look like my mum. I couldn’t even look at her for very long. It wasn’t her. It was a body.

And that’s when I began to cry, and just thought over and over Mum, Mum I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

XOXO Jay.

* * *

Jenny read the last line, mouthed the words silently to herself. Then she hit publish.

Freddie knocked on the study door, came in, and sat on the desk.

‘Can you eat?’ he asked.

She shook her head.

‘Blog post?’

She nodded.

‘Is that a good idea though? You don’t have to share everything right away.’

‘Oh, well, you know. It helps me to write,’ she told him.

‘I know. I know it does.’ He squeezed her limp palm briefly. ‘What can I do?’

‘Just carry on being lovely.’ She smiled at him.

‘I just hope you won’t get any crazies,’ he said.

‘Oh, I won’t,’ she told him firmly. ‘They’re good people.’

‘OK, but let me monitor it, OK? Go and have a bath. Relax, try to have a nap? I don’t want anyone to have a go at you.’

The first pings of response sounded within the hour. Regular readers rushing to Jenny’s virtual side. Freddie kept an eye on the messages as he filled the dishwasher, happy to see that people were being nice. Apparently the post had helped Christie from Pontefract cry for the first time since her own mother’s death two years before – ‘RELEASE of tension!’; Liz from Braintree sent LOVE, and Maya Jayasinghe wrote (or cut and pasted) a touching haiku. Lisa Pike-was-Shay sent a link on an article about grief from the Daily Mail; ilovemykids1982 was concerned that Jay was putting too much pressure on herself to keep up the blog: ‘You have enough on your plate with the counselling training, as well as work and the grieving process. TAKE TIME TO HEAL!!’ but Trish Cole from Dover felt that the busier she was, the better, and signed off: ‘From one neurotic to another, I appreciate your courage!’ All the messages were positive. All expressed their absolute belief that Jenny was a Strong, Remarkable Woman who would Get Through This.

But then it all seemed to go wrong.

Theehedgewitch: How did mum fall? Was she drunk? Drugs?

Ilovemykids1982: what? NOYB

Theehedgewitch: just asking unexplained death suicide?

Ilovemykids1982: Oh my god crawl back under your rock!

Theehedgewitch: All I can say is that at the end of the day you have one mother and that’s it, why weren’t she looking after her??? Why was she alone???

EmmajCrawford: awful news but @Theehedgewitch has a point. When my mother was sick I was there for her fair question imho

Theehedgewitch: THanku! Just sayin

Ilovemykids1982: ffs!! If you think she wasn’t! The whole blog is about that! Read dont troll :-(

Lilagracee: A quick archive search would have told you that Jay did everything she could to help her mum, she gave up her job and everything to look after her! Does that sound like someone who doesn’t care @Theehedgewitch??

Ilovemykids1982: Thanks @Lilagracee. For you newbies there Jay has been through a lot and weve all been on the journey with her so walk a mile in her shoes!

Lilagracee: Exactly. For example: I’m experimenting with pureed food. I’m like the mother of the world’s largest baby – even Mum has to laugh! Today it was pumpkin, broccoli and sweetcorn (I know, right? Delicious.) What delicacy can I prepare for tomorrow? Carrots peas and kale? *shudders* In other news I borrowed some power tools and put up the handles she needs beside the bath and at the top of the stairs. I’m becoming quite the renaissance woman! Joking aside, Mum is making improvements day by day. I’m so proud of her! The MRI shows that she has scarring from previous mini strokes, which is why we have to be very careful, but the physio is definitely getting easier for her to manage. I can’t thank you enough for all your messages of support! But, keep them coming! I need you guys!

ilovemykids1982: its just humbling

Theehedgewitch: you call me a troll but i’m entitled to my opinion there is such a thing as online bullying you know

ilovemykids1982: OMFG

Lilagracee: @Theehedgewitch Police always investigate an unexplained death UK law doesn’t mean anything suspicious

Laundryloony2: Disgusting that Jay is being cross examined in this way!

HollybFootitt: She’s just asking a question tho, no reason to jump on her imo

Laundryloony2: Oh really how would you feel if your mother just died and you were asked this???

HollybFootitt: My mother passed when I was a child, actually so don’t talk to me about it

Laundryloony2: Just goes to show!!!!

HollybFootitt: ????

Lilagracee: I really don’t think this is necessary, come on ladies

Ilovemykids1982: Theehedgewitch I hope your mum dies bitch

HollybFootitt: WTF??

* * *

A few years earlier, after she dropped out of university, Jenny often visited Freddie in London, where he was sharing a flat with five bisexual anthropology students and a bashful, bemused Greek. She wasn’t doing much at the time, just kicking her heels at Sal’s house and applying for temping jobs, but somewhere along the line she must have mentioned something vague about ‘maybe writing some stories or something’ and that’s where the ‘Jenny is a writer’ idea came from. Every time she visited, without fail (usually at last orders at the student union bar), Freddie would bring out his tub and start thumping; she was talented! Seriously, in school? She was so good. Inventive. Seriously! Tell her, will you? Then they’d have another drink, head to a club and all careers advice was put on hold until the next hungover morning. When he graduated and moved back home – well, not home, but the nearest city, where Jenny was working as a receptionist in a doctors’ surgery, his ambition for her coalesced into a firm objective. It wasn’t right that she was wasting herself on stupid menial jobs. You’re better than that.

‘This whole benign bully thing? You can stop that any time you want you know,’ she told him.

They were moving Freddie into his new flat. Very grown up. But then Freddie had done what you’re supposed to do and had finished university, and his parents, Ruth and Graham, had done what parents are supposed to do and helped him with a deposit to buy a flat.

‘You’ve got to be cruel to be kind.’ Freddie had aped the local accent.

‘You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.’ Jenny’s pale face had shone with sweat as she struggled with a box marked ‘Kitchen shit’.

‘Fortune favours the bold.’ Freddie took the box off her.

‘Good. Better. Best. Bested,’ she replied smugly.

‘Now, you see, I don’t even know what that means,’ Freddie told her. ‘So that proves you’re cleverer than me, and you shouldn’t be on minimum wage. So, in a very real sense, I’m brilliant.’

‘I like it there,’ she lied. ‘The people are nice.’

‘It’s between the magistrates’ court and the dole office. Literally nobody there is nice.’

‘You’re a snob,’ she told him, smiling, and passed him a beer.

‘I’m not though. I’m…’ She watched his expression descend from happy banter to serious pondering, and felt herself tense. ‘It’s not snobbery. It’s worry.’ He swigged his beer and turned to her. ‘Have you thought about talking to someone?’ This was the new tack he’d decided to take with her: her lack of ambition was a psychological issue that could be fixed. ‘Not finishing university. Jen, you broke down for a reason—’

‘I didn’t break down. I quit. That’s all. I couldn’t afford the debt.’ She frowned at a handful of knives. ‘We don’t all have to go to university.’

‘Put that down, will you?’ Freddie took the box from her, put it on the work surface. ‘We’ve never really talked about what happened.’

‘That’s because nothing happened.’ Jenny frowned. ‘I just got sick of it. I wanted to get a proper job—’

‘Living the dream, dishing out methadone scripts and scrubbing up tramp vomit?’

‘Someone’s got to do these jobs, Fred.’

‘You’re right. But that someone doesn’t have to be you. You’re better than that. It’s like you’re punishing yourself or something—’

‘You need to lay off the self-help books.’

‘Well, maybe you could do with reading a few,’ he told her. ‘Or maybe talking to a proper counsellor would help? Something’s holding you back. The refuge? That had to be tough; I mean you were only fourteen? Fifteen…?’

Her face hardened. ‘You see, that’s exactly what I don’t like about the whole counselling idea. Poking about in the past, looking for something to blame everything on. It’s-it’s childish.’

‘So, Marc, your mum drinking, the refuge… none of that hurt you in any way, is that what you’re saying?’ Freddie asked her softly. ‘Nothing to see here, move on. Is that it?’

‘It’s just paying someone to whine at them,’ she muttered.

‘OK, would you say that if it was me that was going for counselling? Would you call it whining then?’

‘No. But—’

‘There you are then.’ Freddie’s face shone pink and smug. He drained his beer. ‘Look, I’m back now, I’m on your doorstep, and I’m not going to quit. I’m giving you fair warning. This is my thing now. It’s Project Jen from now on.’

‘It’s expensive though. I’d only get five sessions free,’ Jenny frowned, but she was wavering. Freddie pressed his advantage.

‘I’ll lend you the money.’

‘Well. There’s Cheryl, the woman who does counselling sessions at the surgery. She’s nice…’ began Jenny doubtfully. ‘I could see if she takes private clients—’

‘Do it,’ Freddie told her, took her empty bottle and replaced it with a full one. ‘Just give it a go?’

‘No. It’s stupid.’

Freddie shook his head gravely. ‘It’s not. Stupid is wasting your life. Stupid is giving up on yourself. And that’s what you’ve been doing for the last few years. Admit it.’

Later, when Jenny started training to become a counsellor herself, it was Freddie who brought up the idea of blogging. ‘“Counselling journey?”’ She winced.

‘OK, all right, it sounds cheesy but think about it. When you started this whole thing, navigating all the different training paths was so hard you nearly quit before you began, remember? If there’d been a blog or a site or whatever, where you could see someone else was having the same kind of experiences, it would’ve helped wouldn’t it? And blogging might, I don’t know, give you a creative outlet.’

‘Project Jen is still up and running then?’

‘It’s my thing now. I told you.’

‘I have precious little time as it is, between college and work.’

‘OK, how about this: it’d be more of an online journal. I mean you’re meant to keep some kind of reflective diary for the course or something, aren’t you?’

‘Yeah. That’s a nightmare actually. It feels really artificial doing this diary at the end of each session. I feel like Anne Frank.’

‘OK, so if you made it into a blog, you’d be doing what they want you to do with the diary and all, and you’d be helping other people and getting feedback and it’d be like a—’

‘You’re about to say community, aren’t you?’ Jenny grimaced.

‘I was. I’m sorry but, look, it’s hard what you’re doing. I just think that writing about it might help you. Everyone needs support, and this way you’ll be getting support from people who really understand what it is you’re going through… keeping up with the coursework, as well as going through therapy yourself and—’

‘I don’t know,’ she muttered. ‘It’s not really me. Blogging.’

‘Well, a bit ago, training to be a counsellor wasn’t “you” either, was it? And what if you’re not “you” anyway? Use a pseudonym. No one has to know it’s you. One of the Kardashians checks into hotels as “Princess Jasmine”.’

‘“One of the Kardashians”?’

‘Okay. Kim. It’s Kim.’

‘What about “Sigourney Beaver”? Is that one taken?’

‘You might get the wrong kind of readers with that one.’

‘“J-Ho”?’

‘Again—’

‘“J. K. Growler”?’

‘Enough. Stop. Not even this level of facetiousness can derail Project Jenny. See if you can do it first, then decide on a name. A non-porny name.’

And so she’d talked it over with her tutor, who’d agreed that, in principle, a blog could be viewed as a reflective diary portion of the course, so long as it was anonymised. And so, online, Jenny became Jay.

During the few weeks she spent on cautious research, she discovered that the Internet was a murky river swelled by horribly written streams of consciousness. She read blogs about childcare, about depressing Tinder dates, about gardening, weight loss, teeth alignment, and artisanal breakfasts. Freddie was right, there wasn’t much out there about training to be a counsellor – how gruelling it could be, how emotionally demanding, unexpectedly hilarious, and fascinating it was. There was a gap she could fill.

It didn’t take long for her to get a following, especially once Freddie drafted in his ex-boyfriend to do something complicated sounding with Google to get more hits. Soon more people – mostly women– were reading her posts and seeing something of themselves in her and her situation. Freddie was right: she was a naturally inventive writer, funny, insightful, charming. She soon came to rely on the appreciation and support she received from her readers.

When Sal had the stroke, and Jenny moved back to the village to take care of her, she changed the blog name from the almost criminally dull Jay’s Counselling Training to You Can’t Go Home Again – a strange, evocative phrase that had come to her out of the ether. It fitted perfectly; she was home again, but it wasn’t a home; she was the grown-up daughter, of a now infantile mother… the axis had changed. The messages and comments she received showed her that the world was full of women a lot like her: women with demons, women with pasts, women who loved her, who needed her. And, now that she had her ‘community’ (a hateful phrase but an accurate one), she realised how lonely she’d been without them.

‘I told you! Didn’t I tell you?’ Freddie had asked delightedly. ‘I mean, this could be your thing, I mean, you’re helping people, Jen!’

* * *

Now though, that precious community was divided as the sniping continued, mushroomed. Ping ping ping. Jenny watched it unfold on her phone screen, but didn’t step in to calm things down. Instead she stared into the mirror until the steam obscured the pale oval of her face, the snaky mass of hair, the quiet, hooded eyes. Each question shouted in caps lock was horribly valid:

WHY WEREN’T YOU WITH HER THAT NIGHT?

SHOULDN’T YOU HAVE BEEN BETTER AT THE JOB OF LOOKING AFTER HER?

WHAT KIND OF A DAUGHTER ARE YOU ANYWAY?

There was a knock on the door. ‘Jenny? You’re not on your phone, are you?’ Freddie’s anxious voice told her that he too had been reading the comments. She left a long pause.

‘I probably shouldn’t have posted anything,’ she admitted finally.

‘Just, don’t respond, OK?’ Freddie told her. ‘Please? Or let me help?’

‘Fred?’

‘Yes, darling?’

‘They’re right. What they’re saying – it’s true.’ She was still staring at her reflection.

‘It’s not true though,’ Freddie said flatly. ‘Don’t read anything else. It’s all bullshit.’

Jenny noticed, with a detached interest, the nerve jumping beside her mouth. This hadn’t happened in years, this old twitch. This Tell.

While Jenny was in the bath, Freddie had panic-ordered Chinese, and far too much of it. Jenny gamely ate a few spring rolls and poked about in some noodles, but an hour later, the dining table was still strewn with barely dented containers of congealing food.

‘You can’t let them get to you,’ Freddie said.

‘Is it still going on?’

‘A bit,’ he admitted. ‘But they’ll get sick of it soon.’

Jenny coughed. ‘So I have to call the council on Monday.’

‘Why?’

‘About the house? They’ll want it back. It was in Mum’s name, so…’

Freddie shifted uncomfortably. ‘How long have you got then?’

‘Couple of weeks. I’ll have to call Kathleen.’ Kathleen was one of her shadowy ‘aunties’, who now operated a bar in Tenerife.

‘Well, shouldn’t she come back to help? If she’s a relative.’ Freddie huffed indignantly.

‘She hasn’t got the money to get on a plane just to babysit me.’ Jenny looked at him and smiled. ‘That’s what she’d say anyway.’

‘It’s not babysitting, it’s support.’

‘No.’ Jenny made a vague gesture. ‘I’ve got to clean Mum’s place, and I’m not sure Kathleen would be much of a help anyway.’

Freddie thought of Sal’s grimy house, the stained carpets, the dirty windows. There might not be a lot of furniture to dispose of, but there would be a hell of a lot of cleaning to do. ‘OK. Listen. I’ll take leave and give you a hand with the cleaning,’ he answered firmly.

‘Oh, you don’t have to do that,’ Jenny murmured.

‘Babe, you don’t have to do everything yourself, you know. I think you’re expecting a bit too much of yourself,’ Freddie told her. ‘Look, all this happened today. You’re not just going to bounce back. You’re going to have to be a bit more realistic.’

She smiled bleakly at him. ‘None of this feels real though. I feel like I’m in a play or something. And I’m under-rehearsed. Everyone else seems to know what they’re doing but me. It was stupid, I know, but I thought that if I wrote about it, I could… comprehend it.’ She looked over at her laptop. ‘But that didn’t work. Everyone’ll blame me. I know it. Everyone will start having a go.’

‘You don’t have an obligation to let the world know everything that happens to you. Your only obligation is to get through the next few days and weeks as best you can, and rely on your friends – your real, actual friends – to help you. Not these trolls.’

‘They’re just saying what everyone else thinks – Kathleen, the people in the village, the police and everyone’ll think the same thing. I wasn’t there. I should have been there, and I wasn’t,’ she said flatly.

‘Don’t get paranoid... Try not to get… maudlin. I mean—’

‘No, you’re right. What am I doing?’ She looked at him bleakly. ‘I mean, all I have to do is tell everyone that the woman I was caring for is dead, arrange the funeral. Find the money for the funeral somehow. Give the house back. Find somewhere to live. Oh, and when I have time, do a bit of grieving. I don’t know what I’m getting so stressed out about. Sorry, maudlin about.’ She opened her laptop, winced at the comments, closed it again.

‘I’ll help you,’ Freddie told her. ‘You’re not doing anything by yourself, OK? You’re not. And that maudlin thing – that was a stupid thing to say, I’m sorry.’

‘It really was,’ Jenny replied. ‘Dick move.’ They sat in woeful silence for a minute. ‘You’re right though. I can’t just… collapse,’ she said eventually. ‘Things have got to be done, and I have to do them. There isn’t anyone else.’

‘Leave the blog for now though?’ he asked. ‘You don’t need these people making you feel worse.’

She looked seriously at him. ‘I do need them though.’

He was about to ask about the bruise on her chin, now undisguised by make-up, a green/blue smear, but he didn’t. He’d already upset her enough. Instead he sat with her, watching the storm on the blog begin to blow itself out. @Theehedgewitch was cornered into accepting that she’d started the argument. @HollybFootitt confessed that she’d never allowed herself to grieve over her own mother, and maybe that’s why she’d been such a bitch about things, and @Laundryloony2 posted a soothing Gandhi quote that Freddie was pretty sure wasn’t Gandhi at all, but Beyoncé. Once things calmed down, Jenny felt able to sleep. It was as if they’d granted her clemency.