And this time it was different. This time it wasn't an echo of Eira. It wasn't a borrowed word, a copied sound. It was directed — at Steph, purposefully, with eye contact, with the arms up, with the full weight of a child's request. *Pick me up. You. The one I mean. Mummy.*

Steph's hands stopped on the laundry. She looked at Tima's face — the dark eyes, the dark curls, the serious expression that was always there even when she was happy, that gravity, that oldness in a young face. She looked at the arms held up, the fingers opening and closing, the demand that was also a benediction.

She picked her up.

Tima settled onto her lap, into her, the way water settles into a cup — finding the shape, filling it, going still. She pressed her face against Steph's chest. Her hand found the zip on Steph's fleece — the same zip she'd examined on Friday evening, a lifetime ago — and held it.

Steph held her.

She held her and she didn't say *I'm not your Mummy* and she didn't say *your Papa's coming soon* and she didn't say anything at all because the moment didn't need words. The moment was the old refrain — the one that plays underneath everything, underneath the feeding and the bathing and the sock-folding and the two a.m. checks and the milk-warming and the nose-wiping and the carrying, always the carrying. The refrain that doesn't have a lyric. Just a melody. Repeating. Going round.

After lunch, Steph packed Tima's bag.

It was a particular skill, the packing of another person's child's bag. You had to return everything you'd been given — the inhaler, the sleep sack, the specific cup with the handles, Hoppy — and it was important that Hoppy was on top, visible, reachable, because the moment the bag was opened and Hoppy was not immediately apparent was the moment a twenty-two-month-old decided that Hoppy was lost forever and that life, accordingly, was over.

She folded the yellow top with the bee. She rolled the spare leggings. She put the nappies in the side pocket and the milk cup (washed, dried) in the front zip and the inhaler in its pouch. She worked with the efficiency of someone who had been packing bags for children for four years — folding with one hand while her other hand prevented Eira from adding things that did not need adding.

"This is for Tima," Eira said, holding out a drawing. It showed two figures — one tall (or tallish, Eira's sense of proportion was creative), one small — standing under a triangle that was either a mountain or a Christmas tree. Between them, a third figure: round, purple, one eye bigger than the other. Hoppy.

"That's lovely, cariad. She'll love it."