Sometimes it can be difficult to hear…you think you might have made a mistake…I remember some of the words at night and…' I am lying and the lies disrupt my speech, they weave between words fizzing and popping.
      'Ok Elizabeth, that's fine.' I search her face for a sudden change. 'You don't need to explain anymore. Let's move on.'

        It was a Tuesday afternoon when I heard the recording. Letter twenty-seven on a tape of forty. I was pleased to hear Mr. Daniell's voice. One of the few consultants to speak slowly and clearly, to instinctively punctuate, to linger over difficult terms. I type the body of the letter before hearing his name.
        'Letter addressed to Mr. Thomas Lowe of 281 Princess Drive..' I re-wind the tape to hear it again. Mr. Thomas Lowe. Mr. Thomas Lowe. The recording informs me my father has Leukaemia and I inform him by posting the letter. I leave work early carrying four heavy blue books under my arm. As I exit the building I feel someone is following me. I run fast to the car, lock myself in and sit still for an hour before starting the engine. That night I am restless and search for a meaning.
Leukaemia or Leucocythaemia. A disease of the chronic type in which the number of white corpuscles in the blood are permanently increased. The disease is also characterized by great enlargement of the spleen and changesin the marrow of the bones, or by the enlargement of the lymph glands all over the body.
The words convey nothing; incite no emotion.
Treatment. Fresh air, good diet and rest are essential. No drug or other agency has been found which will cure the disease though it sometimes abates for sometime spontaneously, and though arsenic and benzole have been found to check it temporarily. The application of radium to the abdomen and to the limb bones has been tried and has been successful in some cases, both in reducing the size of the spleen and in improving the condition of the blood and thus prolonging the patient's life.
I search night after night in the books I have stolen. Read pages and pages of symptoms and treatments. All of them tell me my father is dying. My father is dying and will soon be dead.

        Sunday afternoon and he knocks on my door. He's alone, unusually without my mother. He must know by now. The letter will have reached him. [read on]