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Maddy had felt she and her dad had a special bond… so why had he given his treasures to her brother?

After Dad died, we sorted through his things. Mum and I wept non-stop and, every so often, Billy, my brother, left the room without warning.

We were laying out Dad’s life on the bed he had shared with Mum for so long. On the left side, his clothes: one thick tartan shirt, a bit frayed at the cuff; his good suit. On the right side, his things: the silver-backed hairbrush inherited from his grandfather; a pair of sleeve garters as Dad had always found shirt sleeves too long.

“What do I do with them?” Mum sank down onto the bed.

The now six-foot Billy loomed over her. “He said I should have the brush,” he answered gruffly.

It was true. I heard Dad say to him in the harsh, unfamiliar whisper of his last weeks, “Billy, it’s yours.” There was a laboured pause. “And the bicycle.” Another pause. “Give the brush to your son when the time comes.”

What about me? I had wanted to cry out. But at twenty-one, I was too old to behave like that.

“I’ll take everything down to the charity shop,” said Billy.

Despite being the younger by three years, he was trying to be all that Dad would have wanted him to be.

Mum looked up and her eyes looked sore from weeping. “Thank you, love. I dreaded this bit. It’s as if we are trying to pretend he never was.”

She peered at Billy to winkle out if there was anything of his father in his features that she could latch onto.

She should have looked at me.

I was the spit of him. With Billy, it was more a fleeting expression, or a gesture, that vanished on the instant.

Billy and I folded the clothes and packed them into a bin bag ready to heave down the road.

As we worked, a refrain beat in my head. Why Billy? Why had Dad not left anything for me? I loved my brother to bits but, over this, I hated him.

I was the daughter of the house, yes, and Billy was the son for whom – Mum once confessed – they had both longed. They loved Billy, and so do I, but as it turned out, I had been Dad’s companion.

Who was it who went scrumping with him every year? Who was it who took the train to the beach with him and searched for pink and grey pebbles? Who kept Dad company on the walks to his favourite spot on the moor where we ate sandwiches on a big flat stone and listened out for curlews?

A clue: it wasn’t Billy.

On one of those hikes out to the stone, he had said, “I love this place. There’s always a bit of me here.”

I felt the same way. There was a bit of me there, too, on that flat stone overlooking the scrub and heather and Dad had taught me that.

Dad was the parent who I talked to when things went wrong at school, which they did. Just say to yourself, no one can ever take away me from me, he instructed. Bullies always try to destroy a person by making them feel they don’ t count. He would cup my chin in his rough, tender hands. But they’re wrong. Repeat after me. They are wrong.

It didn’t mean that Billy didn’t come along with us too. From time to time, he did. On those occasions, it was lovely and we laughed a lot and indulged in horseplay, but there was never that same intimacy.

I wished Dad had left me something. It

Justsay, NOONE can ever take away ME FROM ME, he instructed

didn’t have to be much. Just something to remember him by, that showed he had thought about me.

I gestured to the now overflowing bag. “It should be compostable.” Billy frowned. “The bag, I mean. It’s plastic. Dad always did his best not to use plastic.’

“He wouldn’t mind just this once.”

Billy managed a half-smile. “Have we checked everywhere for his things?” he asked, and my heart was squeezed tight at this new, practical brother of mine.

I took a deep breath. The pretending that this really wasn’t happening was over. Dad was about to leave us, properly and for ever, and I felt icy inside.

I thought of something.

“The medals? Where are they?”

When he had been in the army, Dad had done a tour of Afghanistan. There hadn’t been many but each one had a story attached to it. He always ended the tales of action with, “We kept a tight unit. That’s how we survived.”

Mum looked bewildered. “Oh. I’d forgotten about them.”

That made me crosser and sadder. Dad had been so proud of his medals. They were part of him.

“I’ll check the cubby.”

I stood at its entrance – you couldn’t really call it a room. It was more a niche into which a desk had been squeezed and chair on casters which had a tendency to roll back into the passage. If you walked past without thinking, you were in danger of falling over.

Dad had taken possession as soon as we had moved in twenty years ago and, surprisingly for my gentle Dad, defended it like a mountain lion. It had been his oh-so limited territory in our crowded house and, naturally, he didn’t like anyone else in it.

When he had been alive and well, he often sat for hours at the desk, reading the paper, surrounded by a mess of correspondence. Now, I opened and shut the drawers. Nothing, except for a forgotten bill roosting at the back of one. The cubby was empty of Dad, and the medals weren’t there either. Dad had truly gone.

I told Mum I couldn’t find them and she said, “We’ll think about them later.”

Afew days later, she received a letter with a cheque in it. “Oh, my God,” she said. Billy and I looked at her. Her face crumpled. “Dad’s medals,” she said. “Apparently, he sold them so we could have a bit more money.”

She pushed the letter over to us and we read that, following instructions from Dad, the medals had been auctioned and the proceeds were enclosed.

“I’ll share it between you,” said Mum. I bought a laptop with the money which was nice. “He would have liked that,” said Mum, but I never really felt that it was from Dad.

As the winter wore away and

spring hoved into sight, I missed him more acutely and I minded more and more that Billy had inherited his things.

The things themselves were not significant – what would I do with a silver backed brush? – but the fact that Dad left me out. At night sometimes, before sleep, I fretted that I hadn’t mattered to him at all.

Brooding over the idea made me snippy and, during those weeks, I didn’t see much of my friends. I couldn’t talk to Mum and I couldn’t talk to Billy. I couldn’t talk to anyone.

Spring came in all its glory and I found my mood lightening. One gloriously sunny Saturday, I decided to go hiking on the moors.

Mum packed me up a ham and cheese sandwich which I stuffed into my rucksack along with a pair of extra socks.

The route involved a bus ride and steep hike up through scrub before emerging onto the moorland proper. As I climbed, I remembered the last time we came this way, when Dad hadn’t been able to manage getting up there.

“You go up for me, love,” he said. I raced up so as not to leave him alone for too long and waved at him like a demented thing from the top before scrambling down.

The sun shone down on the moor and its bracken smell was so intense that it almost stopped in my tracks. Sodden, peaty earth squelched beneath my feet and I had to go carefully so as not to trip over roots and hidden stones. I could hear nothing except birdsong. The sense of space was glorious. I sniffed, drew deep breaths, felt my pulses pick up a beat.

I reached the flat rock and sat down to eat my sandwich. It was good – Mum made the best sandwiches – and the walk had given me an appetite.

Poor Mum, I thought, I’ve not been too nice to her lately. And, as for Billy, I haven’ t said anything civilised to him for weeks.

Halfway through the sandwich, I burst into uncontrollable, gulping noisy sobs. I couldn’t help it. When they finally stopped, I felt as weak as a kitten.

I unzipped the smaller pocket of my rucksack where I kept a permanent stash of tissues, extracted one and blew my nose. I reached for a second and my fingers encountered something unexpected. A small, thick package.

Written on it were the words: To My Maddy.

Dad.

I was crying again. Harder, even more anguished, with a strange constriction around my heart. Dad.

With shaking fingers, I opened the package – bloody Sellotape, thoroughly applied as Dad would do.

Inside was a letter.

My Maddy, I don’ t want to leave you but there is nothing I can do about it. My greatest joy has been Mum, Billy and you. Please, please do everything to keep a tight unit. (You know how I feel about that .) I rely on you, Maddy.

I looked up at the blue sky and the birds swooping through it.

I also wanted to tell you that you that you area very special girl. When I was in Afghanistan and it was tricky, I kept myself sane thinking of you all, but especially of all the things we used to do. Our walks, the beach. All that. You were my companion and you areas brave and resourceful as my mates were in the unit.

I know you. You will be sad that I gave Billy most of my things. But that is not quite the case. I had thought hard to workout what you would like most. What is enclosed here is for you, and you alone. I hope it means as much as it did for me and I hope you will want to keep it but, if you do sell it, don’ t feel guilty. Your loving father PS I knew you find it in the rucksack sooner or later.

Accompanying the letter was something wrapped in tissue. I held it out in the palm of my hand as if I were offering up a sacrifice.

Dad.

Inside the tissue wrapping lay a medal, the one he prized the most, that he had earned the day the unit went out and found themselves in a pitched battle in Helmand province. Dad had crawled out from behind cover while the bullets reigned down around him to rescue his mate who had been shot in the legs.

Isat on the rock for a long time, adjusting to my new thoughts. First off, when I went home, I would cut Mum some slack and cook the dinner. Then I would suggest that Billy and I went out to the cinema.

I looked down and across the sweep of the moor. Its winter brown and dun were transforming into soft greens with a hint of its purple summer coat.

Because I was holding the medal so tightly, it bit into my hand.

Dad’s luck had run out and he had left our unit. It was the last thing he had wanted but he had tried to make it better for Mum, Billy and me.

I gathered up the sandwich wrapping and stuffed it into the rucksack. Then I put the medal in my jacket pocket and headed in the direction of home.

I could hear nothing but BIRDSONG. The sense of SPACE was glorious