“All right,” Daddy’s voice was soft, shallow, short of power for lack of breath, “She was beautiful, Silvia. She looked like an angel, but she liked to break rules. Never anything bad, mind you, just little things. Like she’d chew gum in class, but keep it hidden in her cheek. She’d keep pens. She had thousands of pens. And shoes. The girl couldn’t get enough shoes.“

I vaguely remembered the closet in my father’s bedroom being filled with ladies shoes. When I was small I would go in there and slip my tiny feet into them and try to walk. I recalled stumbling around quite a bit and banging into a dressing table.

“She didn’t like to be inside much, especially in the summer,” He continued, “She never wanted to stay home if she could be someplace else. She liked to sneak out of her house at night to come and see me when we were dating. I worked at a meat shop. It was freezing in there. I was always covered in muck, but she‘d ride her bicycle all the way out there about five miles and sit on a stool and talk to me all night long. She was very bright,” He was looking at me, but I could tell he didn’t really see me at all, “She knew all sorts of things. She was never boring to listen to and even when she talked too much it was all right by me.”

“How old were you when you met?”

“Seventeen,” He answered. His eyes were so far away it frightened me. He paused, the corners of his mouth twitching, “You look like her. I've always told you that. You do. You have her face right down to the crooked bottom lip. There have been times I thought you were her ghost. Your voice, too, sounds like hers.” He gasped and then let out a long breath, “I loved her, Silvia. I loved her more than life itself. “

He stared at me for a long time before he spoke again, “Being with her was like being caught in the wind. She had so much life. She was her own force of nature. She could do things that no girl I ever knew would even think of doing, like toss hand axes and hit marks stuck to trees twenty feet away. She was in the car during the accident that killed her mother. She never told me exactly what went on, but she was very close with her father after. They did everything together. His name was Darrel and he was a welding man. She knew how to make things from metal. She made lovely things. Wind chimes and little brass unicorns, holders that looked like hands and trees for her jewellery. She loved jewellery, anything that shined.”

I listened to him.

“I was too shy to ask her until we were eighteen. Shy and afraid of her old man. He was a big man! Still, I think I told her I was in love with her on our second date. She laughed right in my face. She nearly broke my heart, but then she kissed me. She was always affectionate, you know? She never passed a chance to tell somebody how she felt or to hold my hand. She made me feel like a man and I was just a boy,” I’d never heard him speak like he was. Usually so quiet, the words were rushing out of him and disappearing on the air like powder caught on a breeze, “I married her that year. Her dad knew. We had his blessing, but mine didn’t. My mother wanted me to finish university and have a degree. She didn’t want me working in the plants or the mills, but there was no way Sharon was going to wait.” He paused, shook his head and smiled again, “We got married in this little church called Saint Matthew‘s. It’s not there anymore, they pulled it down years ago. Sharon had a wobble because she didn’t want to wear white. She said it was drab, she wanted something pale pink, but her step-mother wouldn’t have it. Sharon threatened to run away then, but her dad bribed her with the dress Lucy wore at her wedding. He found it himself. Somebody had ordered it special, had it made, and called off their wedding. It had been sitting in a shop for nearly five years. Nobody wanted it. It was too flashy, too long when mini dresses were all the rage. But he knew it was all for Sharon when he saw it. It had sequence, you know, and pearls. It shined, so she lunged for it. She looked unbelievable at our wedding. She carried a single white rose.”

He licked his lips, and nodded off for a long while. The only sound in the room was oxygen gently hissing through the cannula. Just when I was certain he’d say no more, he turned his head back to me and picked up as if there had been no break, “One morning she announced you were on the way. I don’t know, Sil," He shook his head gently from side to side, “She named you Silvia for a book she’d read. Silvia was the name of a beautiful silver dragon that saved a medieval city in a fantasy story. Your middle name, Sophia, means Wisdom. She named you how she hoped you’d be one day. And you are. You are.”

He went on to tell me about my mother with us as babies, how she‘d hold us and talk to us, walk us about and show us everything there was to see. And then he began to tell of something that started a buzz deep inside of me.

“She loved animals, especially rabbits. No idea why, they’re filthy animals, but she had about fifteen of them. I made her a dozen hutches and set them on the side of the house in two rows. She’d take you out there, Silvia, and you’d walk along between them, feeding all the bunnies one by one…”

Something flashed through my mind. It was a memory I’d always had of walking between what I had thought were fences, but they weren’t fences at all. They were small wooden doors covered in chicken wire. It was snowing outside, big, fat flakes falling from the sky and sticking to my eyelids. I reached up with my mitten to rub one off when something from behind one of the screens lunged at me and banged against the door. I screamed and turned to run away, but I lost my footing on the slick snow and fell flat on to my back. A woman bent over me and lifted me to my feet.

“Shush, Love,” She used the same words Oliver always spoke when I was getting emotional. I could hear her laughing gently. I could see her black Wellies and purple tweed coat as she lifted me into her arms, “It’s just Cottontail! It’s just a bunny! He’s not going to hurt you!”

“Cottontail?” I said aloud. “Oh, my God!” I slapped my hand over my mouth. I was literally gobsmacked. My whole body was electric as if I’d been plugged into a socket. Hot, stinging tears filled my eyes and rolled on to my cheeks.

”Are you all right, Silvia?” Dad asked sincerely.

“I’m fine,” I told him, still stunned, “I just….I thought I didn’t remember anything. I thought I couldn’t remember her, but I think I do. I remember a rabbit anyway. His name was Cottontail. I named him after that silly Easter song. I’d forgotten about the rabbits. I thought they were at Gran’s house. I thought they belonged to her.”

He laughed out loud, “No, she didn’t even like them! She agreed to take them, though, after Sharon died, because I couldn’t take care of them and you and Lucy, too.” He stopped and winced. “Just give me a moment,” He whispered.

“Please. Take your time. “

After a moment he began again. “She loved music as well,” He said, “Bagpipes! She loved bagpipes and pan flute! And had such a crush on David Bowie!” He laughed, “It made me so damned jealous!”

David Bowie. Another wave of heat and electricity washed though me. I had always loved David Bowie. I loved him with a dedication and passion that I’d never understood. I’d always felt like I somehow knew the man, as if he’d been a neighbour or an old sitter that had moved away and made the big time and I’d never seen again, but if I did the two of us would throw our arms around the other and be so relieved to be together after so long. Something about his voice, something in his face, in his eyes, had always made me feel safe. He was familiar.

I remember feeling like the room had suddenly disappeared and I wasn’t with my father any longer. I was in a different place all together. I was small, standing just in front of a doorway on a brown rug while a woman closed the door behind us. Sun was pouring in through one of the windows, filling the bed with a giant square of yellow against a grey-blue duvet. She put a record on a player. Above the bed was a picture of David Bowie in a frame. I climbed on to the bed and reached up with my little hand to trace the shape of his face with my finger. His eyes bored into mine. “Hello," I whispered, “How are you today? “