THIS MORNING ANOUK left for school without saying goodbye. I should not be too surprised at this – it’s what she has done every day this week, coming late to breakfast with a Hey, everyone!, grabbing her croissant in one hand and racing off into the dark.

But this is Anouk, who used to lick my face in sheer exuberance and shout I love you! across crowded streets – now silent and so self-absorbed that I feel bereft and icy with fear; the doubts that have dogged me since she was born now waxing as the weeks march on.

She is growing up, of course. Other things preoccupy her. Friends at school. Homework. Teachers. Maybe a boyfriend (Jean-Loup Rimbault?), or the sweet delirium of a first crush. There are other things, perhaps; secrets whispered; great plans made; things that she may tell her friends, but which if her mother knew, would make her cringe with embarrassment—

All perfectly normal, I tell myself. And yet, the sense of exclusion is almost more than I can bear. We are not like other people, I think. Anouk and I are different. And whatever discomfort that may bring, I cannot ignore it any more—

With that knowledge I find myself changing – becoming snappish and critical at the slightest thing, and how is my summer child to know that the note in my voice is not anger, but fear?

Did my own mother feel the same? Did she feel that sense of loss, that fear even greater than the fear of death, as she tried in vain, as all mothers do, to freeze the remorseless passage of time? Did she follow me, as I follow Anouk, picking up markers on the road? The toys outgrown; clothes cast off; bedtime stories left untold; all abandoned in her wake as the child runs ever eagerly into the future, away from childhood, away from me—

There was a story my mother used to tell. A woman desperately wanted a child, but, being unable to conceive, one winter’s day made a child of snow. She made it with exquisite care, clothed it and loved it and sang to it, until the Winter Queen took pity on the woman and brought the child of snow to life.

The woman – the mother – was overcome. She thanked the Winter Queen with tears of joy and swore that her new daughter would never want for anything, or ever know sorrow as long as she lived.

‘But be careful, lady,’ the Winter Queen warned. ‘Like calls to like; and change to change; and the world turns, for good or for ill. Keep your child well out of the sun; keep her obedient as long as you can. For a child of desire is never content – not even with a mother’s love.’