On occasions, she started to smile or laugh. I was worried, once, she might even try to hug me. She looked at me – and I only thought about this after – with curious amazement, as if struck by the fact that I had emerged from her. This was too broad and shapeless a thought to do anything with – certainly we couldn’t speak about it. But she eyed me fondly, maybe with a kind of pride, realising she had never given herself enough credit for making this person.
