‘And dancing. A lot of dancing. I can’t wait to see you dance everywhere we go.’

‘Will I be able to run through the airport?’

‘On the way home, maybe. It depends on how you’re feeling, honey. You may still be really tired from the operation. But you won’t be out of breath. Isn’t that amazing?’

‘Will the airplane be like the one in Home Alone?’

‘Um…’ I cast my mind back to the movie. I’m pretty sure the McCallister adults travelled at the front of the plane. ‘It won’t be as fancy as that on the way out, but on the way back it’ll be far fancier. We’ll have seats that turn into actual beds. How cool is that?’

She beams at me and instantly starts to skip again. ‘So cool! Will we get a pillow?’

I squeeze her hand gently to remind her to take it easy. I do not need an ambulance trip to the nearest A&E to become part of our day out. ‘I think so. I’ve never flown in the fancy part before.’ I’ve never flown long haul at all, in fact. ‘Now, where to first?’

‘Waterstones?’ she suggests.

‘Waterstones it is.’

Like me, Tabs loves reading. It’s lucky, given that the range of physical activities available to her is pretty tiny. She’s smart for her age and devours books quickly. Thank heaven for our local library. We don’t buy many books, except on birthdays and Christmas—my wallet can’t keep up with her reading pace. So the smoke comes off our library card. But I’m determined that she’ll have some beautiful new books to enjoy on the flight and at the hospital.

Waterstones has always smelt like home to me: that scent of printed paper that’s as dependable, as comforting, as a swaddle. I was a child of varied interests—I sang, and I played a lot of tennis, and I read as many books as I could get my hands on. Tabs doesn’t seem as interested in singing, unless it’s Taylor Swift or Gracie Abrams, and tennis has been out until now, but books are her jam a million times over.

‘Oh wow,’ she says reverently, glossing her little hand over the intricate gold foiling on some special editions of Penguin Classics. ‘So pretty.’

‘We can get one or two,’ I tell her. They really are gorgeous. ‘You might like The Secret Garden. There’s a little boy in it who everyone thinks is ill, but he gets super strong by being out in nature, and he’s running around in the secret garden by the end of the book.’

She throws me a you poor, deluded woman look. ‘I don’t think nature will fix me,’ she says solemnly, and I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. I do neither, in fact.