I lived with Rhonda and Nick for almost two years the first time. It was nice there. I was there the longest – other children – or brothers and sisters, as they insisted I called them, came and went. There were always other children around to play with and, once I got used to it, I liked that. I started school and I had friends there too. It was tricky at first as I didn’t know how to count or my letters or a lot of things that most other children my age already knew, but it got easier and I got special certificates to show how well I was doing all the time.

It took them two weeks to find Mama. They found her sleeping in the street. But I didn’t go straight home with her because she didn’t go home herself to start with. Anna explained it all to me. Mama was in a special hospital and Anna would take me to see her every week. I tried to like the visits because she was still my mama, but usually they were a bit scary. Sometimes Mama would just sit in her room and not really say anything and Anna would tell her stuff about me and how I was doing at school and what I’d been doing at home, and then she’d say ‘Well, isn’t this nice?’ every few minutes when it wasn’t nice at all and I couldn’t wait to leave because it seemed like Mama wasn’t even listening.

Other times Mama would cry, and Anna would try to hold her hand and pat her arm and stuff, and usually Mama didn’t want her to and she’d back away into a corner – those were the worst visits. And then other times she would hug me too hard and say sorry, sorry, sorry and that I deserved a better Mama than her and I didn’t like those visits either because I never knew what to say and sometimes she got snot on my clothes.

Then Mama moved out of the hospital and into a flat which was nicer than the old flat we’d lived in and the visits got better. To start with Anna always came with me when I visited Mama but there was no crying, and often there was homemade cake and the flat was always nice and tidy and the curtains were open. Sometimes Mama would take me out to McDonald’s or to the park to feed the ducks. To start with, Anna always came but after a while she stopped coming and it was just me and Mama.