The Charity Excellence Award was already in pride of place on her shelves, but they weren’t the only changes. Gone was the photo she kept on her desk of all of us. Taken at Calder Place, when she’d laid across our legs, smiling and laughing. The empty space gaped, jarring and wrong, and I swallowed the lump in my throat. Her gaze was like liquid ice, freezing off pieces of me. Her make-up artfully applied. No traces of discomfort. Only the bloodshot eyes belied her cool, collected demeanor. “Can we make this quick? I have a big development to get started on,” she jibed, knowing it would sting
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