As she washed out the porridge bowl, Carmel had an impulse to clean the fridge. The thing beeped at her as she wiped and went, top shelf to meat drawer, working the wet cloth until it chilled in her hand. She decided, while she was at it, to defrost the freezer drawers, to root out the last of her daughter’s l ong-abandoned bean burgers and Quorn. The boxes came out squeaking, ice against ice, and the cardboard went limp in the warm air. Carmel ran a cloth along the plastic pleat of the door seal, rolled up a used towel to catch the meltwater, binned the dead food. She looked around her,
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