Taking advantage of the baby sleeping, I tuck the monitor into my back pocket, and slowly ascend the rickety ladder that leads to the attic space. If I’m honest, the attic was never going to be my favourite place to spend the morning, but I had told Rav I was going to clear some of the boxes out, and now I felt obliged to follow through on it. When we moved into the cottage, just a few months before Leo was due to be born, we had piled boxes of our belongings into the attic, Rav swearing that he would go through them once we got settled. He hadn’t, just as he hasn’t yet filled in the pond in the garden as he promised, his position as prosecutor on a high-profile case taking every moment of his time.

Now, I sit back on my haunches, wiping dust and grime from the ladder onto my jeans and survey the dingy space ahead of me. Rav has stacked our boxes neatly to one side, but the attic is filled with years of other people’s possessions, left abandoned and unloved as they have moved on. I pull out a box marked ‘Summer’ and peer into it, seeing some of Rav’s summer shirts, Mina’s armbands, an old sari of mine that I bought in India years ago. I flip the lid over and push it back into place. As I reach for the next box there is movement ahead of me, an activity to match the movement of my own arm and I freeze, my heart hammering in my chest before I let out a laugh, a breath that wheezes its way out of my chest. A mirror. Crawling forward, careful not to bang my head on the beams, I see it propped up against the far wall, clearly left behind by a previous occupant. I scooch along the floorboards, aware that I am getting covered in cobwebs and grime, past the overhead beam into a space where I can stand. It’s a full-length mirror, the glass spotted and dirty but with the most beautiful ornate frame. Getting closer, I run my finger over the whorls and curls of the frame, my skin coming away black with dirt, and I wonder why anyone would leave anything so beautiful behind. It would be perfect in the hallway, I think, and I move closer, testing the weight of it. It’s heavy, but I think if Rav gave me a hand we could get it downstairs. Get it cleaned up. Hang it in the hallway. I imagine myself, checking my reflection in it on the way out of the house every morning and have to suppress a smile. It feels like unexpected treasure.