Excerpt from The Last Days of Rabbit Hayes by Anna McPartlin, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Inside they took in the lush carpets, dark wood, pretty Tiffany lamps, soft furnishings and the shelf filled with books and magazines.

'Nice,' Molly said.

'More like a hotel than a hospital,' Rabbit added.

'Yeah.' Molly nodded. Stay calm, Molly.

'Doesn't even smell like a hospital.'

'Thank Christ for that,' Molly said.

'Yeah,' Rabbit agreed. 'I'm not going to miss that.'

They walked slowly towards a short-haired blonde woman, with a toothy Tom Cruise smile. 'You must be Mia Hayes,' she said.

'People call me Rabbit.'

The smile grew and the blonde woman nodded. 'I like it,' she said. 'I'm Fiona. I'm going to show you to your room and then I'll call one of the nurses to settle you in.'

'Thanks, Fiona.'

'A pleasure, Rabbit.'

Molly remained silent. She was doing her best to keep it together.

It's OK, Molls. Don't cry, no more tears, just pretend the way they're pretending that all is well. Come on, ya mad auld one, just suck it up for Rabbit. It's going to be OK. We'll find a way. Do it for your girl.

The room was bright and comfortable, furnished with a pristine bed, a soft sofa and a reclining chair. The large window looked out onto a lush garden. Fiona helped settle Rabbit on the bed and, in a bid to escape the moment, Molly pretended to investigate the en-suite. She closed the door behind her and took a few deep breaths. She cursed herself for insisting on transferring Rabbit from the hospital to the hospice. Jack hadn't spoken since he'd received the news of Rabbit's impending demise. He needed to steel himself. He didn't have the stomach for it yet, and Rabbit didn't need to be minding anyone but herself. Grace had wanted to help but Molly was adamant. 'No fuss, she just needs to convalesce,' she'd said, lying out loud to herself and to anyone who would listen. Stupid old woman, she thought. They should be here.

'Are you all right, Ma?' Rabbit said, from behind the door.

'I'm grand, love. Jaysus, the bath is as big as Nana Mulvey's old galley kitchen. Do you remember that?' she asked, hearing her voice shake and hoping that Rabbit was too tired to notice.

'She's gone a long time, Ma,' Rabbit said.

'Yeah,' Molly agreed, 'and she spent more time in ours than we did in hers.'

'It's a good bath, though?' Rabbit asked. Molly knew that her daughter was aware of her struggle, which gave her the kick she needed to pull herself together.

'It sure is,' she said, emerging. 'You could drown in it.'

'I'll keep that in mind if things get too bad.' Rabbit laughed.

Rabbit had long ago accepted that Ma was the kind of person who, given the opportunity, would say the wrong thing at the wrong time, every time. There were countless examples of this, but one of Rabbit's favourites had happened many years ago: an old neighbour with a prosthetic hand had asked Molly how she was coping with her mother's death. Molly had replied, 'I'm not going to lie to ya, Jean, it's like losing me right arm.'

Once Rabbit was settled, Fiona left them to it. Rabbit had travelled in her nightwear and dressing-gown even though she'd originally planned to wear day clothes. Molly had brought an expensive pair of wide-legged jersey trousers and a cotton V-necked jumper from Rabbit's house to the hospital, but by the time she'd seen the consultant, received her meds from the pharmacy and been formally discharged, Rabbit had been too tired to change. 'I'm just bed-hopping anyway, Ma,' she'd said. 'It makes more sense to stay as you are,' Molly agreed, but it didn't make sense to her. None of it did. She wanted to scream and shout and rage at the world. She wanted to do some damage, overturn a car, set a church on fire and unleash hell. If I was just five per cent crazier, she thought. Molly Hayes was not in her right mind.

Excerpted from The Last Days of Rabbit Hayes by Anna McPartlin. Copyright © 2015 by Anna McPartlin. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.