Book excerpt: Danika believes she can cope with anything. Now, as she keeps vigil at her mother's hospital bed, watching her life slip away, she feels compelled to answer the questions that linger from her childhood in the eighties. What was the state of emergency about? Why did her father leave, and what happened the night no one ever talks about? Only now, with her mother beyond hearing, can Danika break the silence of those difficult years. Now she can speak the words that were always left unsaid. This beautifully crafted novel is a moving exploration of love and bereavement; of the ties that bind mothers, daughters and sisters, and the silences that keep them apart.