I never again tried out the line about matter neither being created nor destroyed. My father had stopped saying it. So I worked out it had been a lie. Like so many certainties of the world before she left, it turned out to be a trick. Matter most definitely could be destroyed. It was entirely possible to lose something. Permanently. Remembering where you last saw it was no help at all. And even the things you held on to, kept in your sight, might change unrecognisably into something else.
