You were crayoning. Another one of your shining drawings, all yellow swirls. Your concentration was so fierce that you didn’t look up when I came to sit beside you at the kitchen table.

‘That’s very bright.’ I pointed to the tiny stick figure in the middle of the sun-storm. ‘Who’s that?’

You frowned. ‘I can’t do it.’

I patted your shoulder. ‘Of course you can. You can do anything.’

‘I can’t.’ Your voice rose in a wail. You grabbed the paper and screwed it into a ball, threw it across the table.

‘That’s a shame.’ I picked it up, smoothed it out on the tabletop. ‘I like it. It has a lot of energy.’

‘No!’ You were annoyed now. ‘I can’t get it. The crayons aren’t right.’

I hesitated, not understanding. ‘Can’t get what?’

‘That place.’ You were beside yourself. ‘Where Mr Michael lives. I told you.’

I didn’t know what to say. All those drawings, the worn-down yellow crayon, suddenly swam into focus. ‘That’s what you’re trying to draw?’

You gave me a look of contempt and climbed down from your chair, ran out into the sitting room. A moment later, a furious banging as you hit your toy bin with a stick. I sat quietly, looking at the scrunched drawing on the table and the deep scores in the paper from your furious strokes, your attempt to reproduce an atomic burst of light.

I left you for a while and waited until the banging subsided. Then I came through with a plastic pot of raisins and a beaker of milk and sat on the carpet with them. You came over to join me. Your movements were weary. You looked miserable.

You sat on my lap and I stroked your hair from your face. I handed you the milk and you drank without enthusiasm, painting a thin white moustache on your upper lip, then reached for the pot of raisins.

‘Are you sad, sweetheart?’ I sat with my arms round yours as you steadily munched. ‘Because of the accident?’

I hesitated, wondering if I was reading you correctly. You seemed restless and distressed, as if your emotions were too powerful for you to handle.

‘It’s OK, if you are. It was sad, what happened.’

You were quiet for a little while. You were facing forward, away from me, and when you did finally speak, I didn’t catch the words.

I leaned forward. ‘What was that?’

‘Can we go to Venice?’

Your voice was a mumble and I strained to hear.

‘Venice?’

‘Is it a long way?’

You were making no sense. ‘Why do you want to go to Venice?’

You raised your head, your chin defiant. ‘Mr Michael told me. That’s where Catherine came from.’

I shook my head. ‘Catherine?’ I searched my mind for a girl called Catherine at nursery, in a story, in a television programme.

You twisted round to look up at me, your eyes solemn. ‘Auntie Ella’s little girl.’ You hesitated as if you were working something out. ‘Why don’t she and Daddy ask me for sleepovers any more? Are they cross with me?’

I tightened my arms round you. ‘Oh no, Gracie. You mustn’t think that. Daddy does want you to have sleepovers.’ I hesitated, thinking of Richard. ‘He wants that very much. It’s just that I love having you here with me.’

You reached the end of the raisins and spent a moment using the tip of your finger to hook the last one from a corner of the pot. I sat quietly, puzzled, wondering where this story about Catherine had come from. Ella couldn’t have children. Richard had made a point of explaining that to me when he first broke the news that he was leaving. He seemed to expect me to feel sorry for her, as if it were only fair that if I had you, she should be allowed to take him.

‘She really liked me, Mummy. I cuddled her.’ You made a cradle with your arms. ‘Like this. She’s teeny-weeny.’

My mind raced. I thought of the neat stick figure, set in an explosion of light.

‘And Auntie Ella’s her mummy?’

You nodded. ‘So we’re sort of sisters, aren’t we?’

‘But Auntie Ella hasn’t got any children, Gracie. You know that.’

You shrugged. ‘Mr Michael says Ella sent her to him to look after because… because something bad happened so she couldn’t stay with her mummy. He looks after lots of children.’

I turned you round on my lap to face me, your legs astride mine and held your arms, trying to force you to look at me.

‘Gracie, my love, do you think this was another dream?’

‘Stop it.’ You squirmed and lashed out at me, struggling to get free. ‘I met her! I did.’

I tried to think of books with girls called Catherine that might have given you the idea. ‘What did she look like?’

You twisted away. ‘Red hair and a nice face and stripy trousers.’ You considered this. ‘I said I wanted to take her home with me but Mr Michael said I couldn’t. But he said maybe I could see her in Venice. So can we go? Please?’

You looked relieved once you’d finished speaking, as if you’d transferred a weight from your shoulders to mine. You ran across to your books and began to pull them out and pore over them, picking through the pages.

I went through to the kitchen to make myself a cup of tea. I stood, dazed, leaning against the counter as the kettle boiled, watching you through the doorway. Catherine? I didn’t know a child with that name. Neither did you. And why Venice?

Wherever this strange story had come from, you seemed instantly happier now you’d shared it. By the time I poured the tea, you were sitting by the toy bin, rifling through an assortment of hand puppets and a threadbare woolly sheep, chatting to yourself, lost already in your own world.