I knew, the minute that I accepted her offer and crossed the threshold into the house, that any hope of being on the receiving end of any kind of support was gone. The night was no longer about me, it was about Martha, a young women who was clearly still little more than a child and yet had been thrust into a scary and confusing situation that most adults would struggle to cope with, let alone one so young.

But I was fine with that. I felt that lending her a shoulder to cry on was something I owed it to Gina to do, especially in light of the fact that I'd managed to let Elliot down so badly.

Besides which, I needed a chance to practice my mothering skills. I'd not really had much chance up to that point, and any kind of trial run was bound to be useful.

"I'm sorry about the state of the place." she said as she led me into the living room. She needn't have apologised. Since no one had been living there it wasn't particularly messy, just covered with a thin layer of dust which, if I hadn't been a woman of the 'can't clean, won't clean' variety, might have caused me to break out my duster and sort the problem out. As it was, all it really made me feel like doing was giving Elliot the number of my cleaner and advising him to give her a call at the first opportunity.

I sat myself down while Martha excused herself to the kitchen before returning with a corkscrew and glasses, trying to act like the cool and composed hostess that she clearly wasn't. Like a little girl playing 'house' was the analogy I made at the time, although that was an observation that would later come back round to bite me on the arse.

I knew I ought to decline the wine, but I knew it would look strange if I did since I'd brought it round in the first place. Besides which, after my altercation with Sam earlier in the day, I felt I needed at least a small glass.

Once the wine was poured and she was sat on the sofa beside me an awkward silence fell over the two of us. It was hardly surprising – what can a CT surgeon in her 30's have to say to an 18 year old media studies student? Especially when the only connection between them is the fact that one aided the assisted suicide of the other one's mother.

Little did I realise though was that the silence was the worst possible thing for Martha, as she was quick to tell me.

"Say something." She said, her eyes filling with tears, "People say nothing to me Connie, because they're scared of saying the wrong thing, but actually its worse if they say nothing at all because it just leaves a great big silence, a void of nothingness that serves no real purpose other than to remind me that my mum is dead."

The 'great big silence' that she speaks of is one I know all too well. Just as people avoid talking to her about Gina so they also avoided talking to me about Michael. I don't think one person, with the exception of Martha's parents, talked to me about him during the entirety of his incarceration; far better instead to talk about it behind my back, make veiled barbs about it to my face or, if they were feeling particularly kind and charitable towards me on that particular day, just saying nothing at all.

So yes, I did understand and, after sipping my wine, I told her so, to which she responded with the unimpressed look that teenagers are inclined to give people over the age of 30 whenever they claim to be on the same wavelength as them.

I would have argued, but I sensed that if Martha had inherited half of Gina's temperament and even a tenth of her spirit it was a discussion that was doomed to end in stalemate, and so, I just asked her how she was coping, regretting it instantly as she burst into tears on me, filling the hole left by the previous uncomfortable silence with uncontrollable sobbing that I was in little doubt came straight from the heart.

It's strange, I've never ever liked people crying. I think it comes of growing up in an all male environment actually. I was raised on the policy that big boys, and their troublesome little sister's (if she knows what's good for her) don't cry. But that night I didn't freeze and then excuse myself as I'm generally inclined to do when patients or their families burst into tears. I didn't even find myself feeling awkward, and the reason for that was that with Martha I knew exactly how to handle it.

I knew exactly what to do. In fact, I was compelled to do it, by force or forces unknown.

I reached out. I took Martha in my arms. And I held her,