Mum calls to us from the kitchen. She wants me to put Toby in his baby chair and she wants Dad to carve the turkey. The table is already laid. I helped her do it earlier while Toby was sleeping. There are four Christmas crackers waiting to be pulled. One for each of us in this strange little group we call a family.

“Here you go, Pumpkin,” Dad says, handing Toby over like the precious Christmas gift he is.

I take him in my arms and kiss his downy little head as he snuffles into my neck. When I think of how close I came to losing him…how close Mum came to losing me.

My darling Toby. My little boy. We’re a team now, the two of us. So much stronger than we look.

THREE MONTHS LATER

I’ve been expecting it to look the same, but it doesn’t. This ugly concrete-and-steel footbridge is new and it takes me a while to process the change, to reconcile it with the image I’ve had in my head all these years. The image that comes back to me in dreams. Just one of many images that continue to haunt me.

It was Dad who suggested we come here. For closure, he said, although I’m not sure such a thing exists. He hasn’t accompanied me onto the footbridge. He’s waiting at the bottom of the steps, Toby strapped to his body in the baby carrier. This time last year, Toby was the size of an apple pip. I didn’t even know I was pregnant. Now he weighs six kilos and can push himself up on his arms when he’s lying on his tummy.

I can imagine how secure he feels, snuggled against Dad’s broad, warm chest, and I wonder if that’s how Dad carried me once. The little girl who wasn’t his, but whom he loved just as much as if she were. Still does.

I stop and lace my fingers through the steel mesh that’s here to stop people launching themselves off, or daredevil children from climbing down. I can’t toss the flowers I’ve brought with me onto the track, as I’d planned, but maybe that’s just as well. I dread to think how much worse I’d feel if I were leaning over the edge, my sight unencumbered by this metal latticework.

My forehead presses into the cold steel and I peer down. This is as close as I can get to the actual spot where it happened. My breath comes fast and shallow.