Colette returned from seeing Guy out to find Zosia gone. She decided that she should be left alone for a little while and started to cook dinner.
Half an hour later, there was a knock at the bedroom door and Colette entered.
"I brought you some dinner." She announced, setting a plate of spaghetti bolognaise on the bedside table and sitting on the bed beside Zosia
"Thanks…but I'm not hungry." Zosia answered.
"You haven't eaten at all since you've been here." She told her.
"I just don't feel like it."
"You've got to eat or you will make yourself ill." She turned her attention to the notebook that Zosia was clutching onto. "What's that?"
Zosia flicked through her notebook.
"Things that I can learn from. I started it when I started working at the hospital. Mr Hope always had a lot of wise things to say. Mama always had a way of making things seem much better and I never wrote the things she said down…I remembered some things but the rest have just faded. I was reading it to see if there was anything that could make this better." She trailed off. "But there isn't."
"Your mother always did know the right thing to say. She certainly had a lot to say to me when I was a student nurse."
"She had a lot to say to everyone." Colette smiled at this.
"The wisest thing she ever said to me was…'don't go out drinking and partying before a double shift'. I didn't listen to her the first time. I wish I had!"
Zosia almost smiled.
"I miss her so, so much." She said, her voice shaking.
"Me too." Colette told her, putting a comforting hand on the young doctor's arm.
"I wrote down what you said." She confessed.
"What did I say?"
She opened her book and read from it.
"A few things…'you can't get through it without talking', 'nobody messes with me' and 'the old Zosia is in there somewhere'."
Colette felt touched that Zosia had taken note; quite literally, of what she had said.
"And there was me thinking that you hated me." She said.
"I've been awful to you…and to dad. I'm sorry. I just thought…I thought that you were trying to replace mama." She apologised.
"Nobody could ever replace your mother. I would never try to. She was a hard act to follow. I just wanted to be a friend to you and your dad, that's all."
"I know that now." There was a short pause.
"The police are going to investigate this. I made sure of it."
"How do you know?"
"What's that you've got written down that I said? 'Nobody messes with me'. Let's just say that police officer learnt that the hard way."
"What did you do to him?" Zosia asked, a trace of amusement in her voice.
"I told him that he had the forensic evidence, a full statement and a name, which is all he needed to kick off an investigation. You should have seen his face!"
"I'm sorry I walked out and left you to deal with it." She said guiltily.
"It's alright. You had every reason to, he had no respect, I would have done the same if it was me." There was another pause. "I have something to give you." She said, handing Zosia a small box.
"A red slipknot." Zosia said quietly as she opened the box, revealing a red necklace with a red cord on the end tied into a slipknot.
"Your mother gave it to me and told me that if ever you were in any kind of trouble, any kind of worry or pain that I was to give this to you. Apparently it's a Polish superstition."
Zosia nodded.
"It's said to ward off evil spirits if anything bad happened." She told Colette.
"You see, she still wants to look out for you, she's still with you."
