Excerpt from The Sea Gate by Jane Johnson, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

'I'm so sorry about your mother. The news came as a terrible surprise.' She considers me. 'You look so pale! How are you, Becky?' she asks, and I give the usual reply. She peers over my shoulder. 'And where's your handsome man?'

That's a good question. I experience a physical yearning for Eddie that rushes through me like fire. I mumble something about unfortunate timing and quickly change the subject, brightening my tone. 'How about you and Lukas, are you well? You look well! And your girls have grown so much!'

'Anna is just finishing Key Stage 2. It's a good time for us to move.'

'You're moving? Where are you going?'

She looks surprised, as if the answer is obvious. 'Back to Lithuania. To be honest, we don't really feel welcome here any more. Besides, Lukas says there are good jobs to be had with the energy company, so it makes sense for us to go.' She puts her hand on my arm. 'You know, I would have come in and helped Jenny more if I'd known she was ill. Not for money, you understand,' she adds quickly. 'But she didn't tell me she was sick.'

'She didn't tell any of us,' I say. Her death feels unreal. Why hadn't I paid more attention during our twice-weekly calls? I must have missed so many little clues. Had there been some small hesitation when I asked how she was? The answer was always, 'Fine, dear. But more importantly, how are you?' and I hadn't recognized this as deflection. Mum had been putting others before herself all her life. I didn't even know she was in hospital when we last spoke: my mother used the same mobile phone no matter where she was.

'Why didn't she tell us she was so ill?' I had asked my brother when he called to break the terrible news.

An uncomfortable pause. 'She told me,' he said. 'But only recently. She said there was nothing that could be done, and you already had enough on your plate. She knew I wouldn't fuss and would just get on with doing what she wanted.'

The word 'fuss' cut deep. I had always unloaded my problems on Mum, because if you can't tell your mother your deepest fears and your daily disasters, then who can you tell? Every time something awful happened I would think, Well, at least it'll give me something to talk about with Mum, and would gather amusing or gruesome details with which to embroider the telling.

The realization was a sort of second bereavement, a mourning for the relationship we shared, as well as for the mother I lost. It is confirmation of how weak Mum must have thought me, and now I will never have the opportunity to change her perception.

The next day James, Evie and I make our way to Mum's flat, which lies at the top of an unprepossessing building on the edge of Warwick. James turns the spare key in the lock and pushes the door, but it won't budge more than a few inches. I drop to my knees on the dusty doorstep and reach around the frame to find that the obstruction is a pile of unopened post. I claw it away till the door opens a bit wider and James steps inside. I am about to get up to follow him, but Evie presses a hand down on my shoulder and steps over me, placing the spiked heels of her crocodile-skin boots carefully into the islands of floorboard revealed between the ocean of envelopes and flyers. 'Good grief,' she says as she passes. 'Anyone would think she'd been dead for years.'

I stare at her retreating back in disbelief.

She stalks down the hallway and stares in passing at the framed pictures on the wall, dismissing them as worthless. Yes, Evie, they're barely worth the cost of the canvas they're daubed on: I painted them.

I gather the post into a pile, imagining Mum lying in her hospital bed with the stupid, oppressive reminders of ordinary life spilling through the letter box day after day. Sixty-four years old, gone without warning; of course the bills and letters and junk mail have kept on coming – no one expected this sudden departure. Again, the enormity of her passing hits me. I will never be able to call her on a whim, to ask if she's seen the size of the moon tonight, or to check on her recipe for scones; never share another Christmas lunch with her, never have to sneakily return ill-fitting birthday presents to Marks & Spencer. Never be able to hear her say, Don't worry, darling, I'm sure it's nothing. I sniff back tears.

Excerpted from The Sea Gate by Steven Johnson. Copyright © 2021 by Steven Johnson. Excerpted by permission of Simon & Schuster. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.