Chapter 13
Most of Monday morning revolved around getting the certificate, which Phillip then had to use to register his mother’s death. As well as typing things on a computer, a woman who made strange noises, which he assumed were supposed to express commiseration, wrote by hand in a large book. The beautiful script penmanship seemed wasteful to use on something so morbid. Fortunately, both Anna and Gary had told him what details he would need to give her—facts about his mother that he was sure many children probably never knew.
Where she was born? Why did they need to know that? He was sure many children these days would have no idea where their parents were born. Only by a stroke of luck had he chanced upon her birth certificate—old, discoloured, and creased—shoved into the back of a
