Mum’s done almost everything I wrote in my notebook. She’s nearly finished and I find that very frightening. What’s going to happen next? I try not to think about it, but actually I think about it all the time, because the second thing that Mum hasn’t said, but which I’ve clocked anyway, is that she’s got new plans. She wants to start her life afresh, she’s got ideas for a new job, too, I’m certain, and that drives me mad because I know that, for Mum, her work is all-important. With all these people and a new gig, where does that leave me? On the fourth floor of the Robert Debré Hospital. Not in her life any more.

The last thing that Mum isn’t saying, the thing that’s the most painful, is that any hope that I’ll wake up is fading. I’ve concluded that they’ve given her a date. I don’t know when it is, but I sense it’s very close. I feel it when she tells me to keep fighting, that I can do it: she doesn’t have the same strength as she did a few days ago. Sometimes she sounds resigned. At those times, I want to yell that I’ve been awake for donkey’s years (as Granny Odette would say), but that no one gives a stuff, that those stupid doctors aren’t even capable of seeing it, despite their umpteen qualifications and their state-of-the-art equipment. A shit show, that’s what this hospital is. Excuse my language, but I’ve had it up to here. What does Mum think? I feel that, if my body doesn’t start sending signals, I’m going to give up soon. If I’m still hanging in here, it’s purely for her sake! For everything she’s done for me, for everything she’s still doing, I’m only sticking around for her. Because, me, I’m beginning to accept the idea. I understand that I’m an immobile object, a burden that has no useful purpose. I’m not even decorative – decorative, what a joke! I know I’ve got tubes sticking out all over my body, that they stuff pre-chewed mush directly into my stomach, that they put me in nappies, like a baby or an old person. I picture myself, I see myself, and I’m disgusted. I must be horribly ugly, and, with no voice to wow the jury, Hop it, out, sweep him away, bring on the next contestant. Mum tells me I’m beautiful. I don’t believe her, but it makes me happy to hear it anyway. Grandma tells me that I’m her miracle, that my room’s ready at home, that there are loads of presents waiting for me.