Sunlight pours through the window and stabs me with its edges. I draw Tommy to me, cuddling his warm, sleepy body.

‘Mr Sunshine has slept enough, Yaya, he’s come out to play.’

Little fingers drum on my head, pa-rum-pum-pum-pum.

‘Shh, little man, come here and let’s sleep a little longer.’ I hold his hands, kiss his fingers. Little torturers.

‘Up, Yaya, up.’

Tommy pulls the duvet off the three of us and runs around the bedroom chasing and cupping the light with his hands. I don’t remember going from the couch to the bed. Pity I can’t block out other unwanted memories. ‘Tommy, pull the blind down, there’s a good boy,’ I manage, my voice catching and breaking on every syllable. ‘Can you get water?’ He nods, goes into the kitchen, pours a glass, brings it back and holds it to my mouth, then to Herbie’s. ‘Unhygienic…’ I try, but it’s too much effort. Tommy puts a towel over my eyes and strokes my hair until I go under again.

‘Tommy?’ The TV is on; I can hear shouting and booing, probably one of those daytime therapy circuses that Tommy loves. Jeremy Kyle is his favourite. He’s kind, Yaya. He wants to make the peoples stop screaming. We’d make great fodder, top-rating viewing. I crave my son’s snug little body and the heft of Herbie, so I call out to the dog, who doesn’t come. The door is closed to the living room, which I’ve told them is strictly forbidden. We have nothing to hide from each other, not even number-twosies, which Tommy finds brilliantly funny. Closed doors make me panic, so I heave myself to the side of the bed, head spinning, sick rising, place my feet on the carpet and haul myself to standing, open the connecting door and find Tommy curled up in Herbie’s belly on the couch, the two of them locked in a circle of love, the dog snoring, the little boy’s arms draped around his neck. The picture is of such tenderness that my breath catches and I have to sit, my vision blurred. When did I become such a crier? Everything these days brings on the waterworks, everything beautiful and everything cruel, and this scene seems to contain it all.

My stomach is raw and distended. Run my hands across my belly and imagine an alien life form in there, eating me from the inside out. Some otherworldly force has made its headquarters inside me and is issuing instructions I’m powerless to resist. I look above the mantelpiece at my reflection in the mirror and see a bloated face, red, mascara-streaked (when did I bother to apply the last slick from my dried-out wand?), blackened lines running in rivulets down my cheeks, evidence of my tears inked in black. My eyes move to the form of my little boy, his trousers smeared with ice cream, his T-shirt rumpled and grimy at the neck, odd socks, one of them mine, his tiny foot swimming in all that space. I sit at the edge of the couch. Herbie’s eyes open and his big tongue reaches out to lick my hand. ‘What are we going to do, Woofter?’ His head tilts to the side, his eyes huge and shining. I imagine myself reflected in them, in a much more favourable light than the mirror’s cold glass. In his eyes I am goodness incarnate, his life prior to coming to me one of neglect and wilful cruelty. Oh, Herbie, old boy, I don’t know if I’m up to the job. I can still see the scars underneath his thick coat, the round cigarette burns on his neck, hidden by his collar. What kind of a person, what kind of a world—?