Sometimes a death in the family is like a plane crash – no one walks away from the wreckage.
Sam Dickens, an ordinary, middle-aged kitchen designer, makes Helen James, a Cambridge therapist, a simple offer – I’ll pay you twelve thousand pounds if you can fix me.
It’s an offer any therapist should refuse but no one is more surprised than Helen James when she accepts. She needs the money. Her career is in crisis. Maybe, just maybe, if she saves Sam she can save herself.
In a series of therapy sessions Helen tries to hold onto her professional life, tries to find a way to honour her part of the bargain.
In a collection of personal memoirs Sam Dickens reveals some of the truth behind his grief.
It soon becomes clear that only something extreme will pull him out of his emotional tailspin, only a shock will make him admit what’s really at the heart of his despair.
There’s nothing you can do about some kinds of cancer. There’s nothing you can do about death. And, sometimes, there’s nothing you can do about the terrible, unforgivable mistakes we sometimes make.