A Life Lost. Cathy Glass

      

Copyright

      Certain details in this story, including names, places and dates, have been changed to protect the family’s privacy.

      HarperElement

      An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      HarperCollinsPublishers

      1st Floor, Watermarque Building, Ringsend Road

      Dublin 4, Ireland

      First published by HarperElement 2021

      FIRST EDITION

      © Cathy Glass 2021

      Cover design Claire Ward © HarperCollinsPublishers 2021

      Cover photograph © Kelly Sillaste/Trevillion Images (posed by a model)

      A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

      Cathy Glass asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

      Find out about HarperCollins and the environment at

       www.harpercollins.co.uk/green

      Source ISBN: 9780008436612

      Ebook Edition © February 2021 ISBN: 9780008436629

      Version: 2021-01-19

       Note to Readers

      This ebook contains the following accessibility features which, if supported by your device, can be accessed via your ereader/accessibility settings:

       Change of font size and line height

       Change of background and font colours

       Change of font

       Change justification

       Text to speech

       Page numbers taken from the following print edition: ISBN 9780008436612

Acknowledgements

      A big thank you to my family; my editors, Kelly and Holly; my literary agent, Andrew; my UK publisher HarperCollins; and my overseas publishers, who are now too numerous to list by name. Last, but definitely not least, a big thank you to my readers for your unfailing support and kind words. They are much appreciated.

Epigraph

      ‘For life and death are one,

      even as the river and the sea are one.’

       Kahlil Gibran

      Contents

      1  Cover

      2  Title Page

      3  Copyright

      4  Note to Readers

      5  Acknowledgements

      6  Epigraph

      7  Contents

      8  Chapter One: A Difficult Start

      9  Chapter Two: Tragic

      10  Chapter Three: Jackson

      11  Chapter Four: Get Into Trouble

      12  Chapter Five: A New Day

      13  Chapter Six: A Mixed Weekend

      14  Chapter Seven: Challenging Behaviour

      15  Chapter Eight: On Tenterhooks

      16  Chapter Nine: Hard Work

      17  Chapter Ten: Another Difficult Evening

      18  Chapter Eleven: The Blink of an Eye

      19  Chapter Twelve: Abused

      20  Chapter Thirteen: Evil

      21  Chapter Fourteen: Confused and Upset

      22  Chapter Fifteen: Say Goodbye to Mummy

      23  Chapter Sixteen: A Long Day

      24  Chapter Seventeen: Back at Square One

      25  Chapter Eighteen: Decision

      26  Chapter Nineteen: Are We Going to Prison?

      27  Chapter Twenty: A Worrying Wait

      28  Chapter Twenty-One: The Reason I Foster

      29  Chapter Twenty-Two: Life After

      30  Chapter Twenty-Three: Two Children, Different Needs

      31  Chapter Twenty-Four: Because I Didn’t Tell …

      32  Chapter Twenty-Five: Another Hurdle Overcome

      33  Chapter Twenty-Six: Incident

      34  Chapter Twenty-Seven: Connor

      35  Chapter Twenty-Eight: Going Home

      36  Chapter Twenty-Nine: A Life Lost

      37  Suggested topics for reading-group discussion

      38  Cathy Glass

      39  Moving Memoirs

      40  Praise for Cathy Glass

      41  About the Publisher

      LandmarksCoverFrontmatterStart of ContentBackmatter

      List of Pagesvvivii