It’s an overcast day in early December, when I call her. The light fading and winter creeping in. A disconsolate day I hope to brighten with news.

“Hi, mum. Are you sitting comfortably?” I ask.

And she mutters a reply, “Yes”, her voice frail and exhausted, battered by the long years of illness.

“I have some good news,” I tell her.

And before I can continue, she is already talking, her voice more alert now, her attention sharpened.

“Oh! Is it your book?” she asks. “Is it your book?”

“It is,” I say, and then all that follows is a gasp of silence followed by a sob of joy.

I have waited years to be able to tell her this, years spent dodging that question: “What’s happening with your book?” And now, finally, I can answer it, finally she has an answer.

And the details do not matter. It is only the emotion of the moment that counts. The joyous realisation that it has arrived.

“Oh, Jennifer,” she says. “Oh, Jennifer.” Over and over.

“Come June, you will be able to hold it in your hands,” I tell her. And I think she hears me, over the exhalations. But there will be time to tell her again.

For now, we sit, separated by the ocean, but joined together in happiness.

Our voices brighter now and stronger because the book, the book, it’s coming at long last.