As I sat and listened to it, I started to place the beat alongside the lyrics that were suddenly in my head. Maybe they were always in my head. My mouth was dry and my heart rate had sped up. This wasn’t like one of those moments I had where a mundane everyday sound, turned into the first few chords of a song. This was that song, I could hear loud and clear, it was there and it fitted with the tempo. Of course, the banging was too uniform to be just a random sound from the old house. I knew when I had heard it the very first night.

I started to hum along. Then I started singing. The tears were falling. Images of Ben and I singing along together in bed the day after I met him, flooded my mind.

I looked around to pick up the baby but he was gone. Panic paralysed me for a few seconds.

I tried to stand but I could feel the room spinning. Images were flashing in front of me. Memories from the last few months, the shouting I had heard the day Ben disappeared, Annie waking me up at 3 a.m. clattering about in the kitchen. The bruise on her cheek the next morning. Then I walked to the mirror. I lifted my T-shirt to expose my deflated stomach, wrinkled but stretch mark free. I thought about Annie walking into my room naked, her taut skin completely exposed. I cast my mind back to the conversation on the day we heard the baby’s heartbeat, I could hear Annie’s voice telling me her body was in ruins from stretch marks. I traced my fingers over the sides and front of my stomach and abdomen and my mind switched to Annie’s body. I had seen enough of it, from all sides. Annie’s body was taut and smooth. And did not look as though it had stretched to accommodate the space for a growing life.

I ran to the bathroom and threw up.

62

ANNIE

I had to work fast as I knew I couldn’t keep her out for long with those drugs. And the damn baby was fussing, he was hungry, I would need to prepare another bottle.

I could have put money on Daisy losing the plot, handing the baby over to me and retreating back to her old life. But that wasn’t so any more. Just in the same way as I imagined my son would comply and realise his place was here in his home with me.

So I had a new plan.

I pulled the blankets tighter around the baby and he settled down into the crook of my arm, the weight of his little body felt so right.

I stood in my bedroom and looked around for the final time. Everything was prepared, just a few more things to do now and we would be on our way.