Mira’s eyes snapped open in the dark. The crunch of car tyres pulling up on the cul-de-sac had woken her from a brief, uncomfortable sleep.

She felt damp. The hardness of the slimy, mossy slats radiated through her hip and her shoulder.

She blinked away the drowsiness, trying to place where she was. On seeing the view of the back of the Bradleys’ house, her heart jumped. She was curled up on the floor of the Bradleys’ gazebo at the bottom of their garden. Then she heard the mechanical slide of the gates open and the crunch of footsteps on the Bradleys’ gravel. Frantically, she scrambled up and crawled on her hands and knees back through the hedge.

The light was on in the potting shed.

After Rosie had left, Mira had not gone back to bed. Instead, she had found the hole in the hedge where the Bradley children crawled to retrieve their balls or skitter across to Victoria and Jim and whatshername’s at number two and she had clambered through it to the Bradleys’ garden to check that Rosie was not curled up on the doorstep. Mira wanted to keep a vigilant eye on the house, to be on the look-out for Rosie, making sure Rosie knew she always had someone to turn to, that she would never have to sleep on a doorstep as Mira had done.

She put the light out in the potting shed. The yeasty smell of Rosie’s spilt drink was still present. Mira’s heart melted at the thought of the little girl’s nervy disposition. She wanted to be her guardian angel, just as she had wanted to be for her own baby. The drips of condensation on the window where the kettle had boiled shimmered in the moonlight. The rivulets morphed into steam on a shop window, somewhere in her past. She felt the damp heat of the bustling chippy on a cold winter’s evening. The waft of vinegar and salt filled her head, taking her back.

She had counted out five one-pound notes into her mother’s hand.

‘What d’you want?’

‘Cod and chips and a deep-fried Mars.’

‘You sure that’s a good idea, chubby buttons?’ her mother had said, and she went to poke at Mira’s middle. Mira leapt back, knowing her mother’s fingers would press through the flesh to hit the taut drum of her pregnant stomach.

‘All right, chill out, love, I was only kidding,’ her mother responded, looking hurt more than angry.

‘I’ve got period pains, that’s all,’ Mira said.

They had sat on the bench as they waited for their order. Her mother recommended she take some of her heavy-duty painkillers when they got home. This had been a kindness Mira wasn’t used to. When Deidre wasn’t there, she let her guard down a little. It must have been exhausting for her mother to keep up the stonewalling routine, most probably long after her anger had died away. Mira guessed that her mother had known all along that Craig was the real villain of the piece. But it was almost worse when her mother was nice to her.

Mira moved her hand to a small smooth bald patch on the back of her skull, underneath all her hair where she had twisted and tugged. She enjoyed the snag of pain when a few strands came free into her fingers.

Back in the car, the vinegar from the fish and chips stung the ulcer in Mira’s mouth and the indigestion pushed up her throat. She had had enough. The months of hiding her bump had sapped all of her energy, but no amount of putting off telling her mother was slowing down the changes in her body. Soon, it would be impossible to hide it.

There had never been a moment of doubt that she would keep the baby, but everything she had read about in the pregnancy books in the library were as different from her own experience as she could imagine. She hadn’t had a scan or a doctor’s appointment or even a chat about baby names. She had conspicuously bought tampons every month, which she threw away, bought two baggy navy jumpers from the charity shop to wear to school, eaten for three instead of two to hide the bump under fat, rolled her socks down to conceal her swollen ankles, turned down all invites to the parties her friends were going to.

All the way home from the fish and chip shop, blood had roared in her ears, drowning out the car radio. She was never going to feel ready, but she couldn’t hold it in any longer.

They parked up outside the house.

‘Mum, wait a seccy.’

‘Yes?’ Her mother replied irritably, her hand poised on the car door handle.

‘I’ve got something to tell you.’ The words were more like a wretch.

‘If you’re going to tell me that you failed your Geography mock, I know. The teacher called me.’

Momentarily side-tracked, Mira said, ‘What? Mr Dilcot called you? What did he say?’

‘He said your marks were crap and he didn’t understand why. He said you’d fail your O levels if you carried on like this.’

‘Why didn’t you say anything to me?’

‘I didn’t want to upset you, you know, after everything you’ve been through with Craig and everything,’ she explained, looking away. ‘Come on, these’ll get cold.’

Mira was touched. She wanted her mother’s show of affection to last. This could have been the perfect diversion, to back out of her decision to tell her. Or, this could be the perfect time to tell her, while she was in a good mood.

‘Mum, you know how I’ve got really overweight and everything?’

‘Yes?’

‘Did you ever wonder why?’

‘I guess you’re depressed about that shit-bag dumping you.’

‘Nope.’

Her mother’s hand fell from the handle and she turned to face the passenger seat where Mira sat, the veil of denial had dropped clean off her eyeballs as they ogled Mira’s stomach.

‘You’re not.’

‘I’m twenty-six weeks.’

‘Christ!’ Her mother glared at her for a second, speechless, and then leapt out of the car and slammed her door. ‘No, no, no, no, no, NO.’

Mira stayed put inside the car. ‘Yes,’ Mira mumbled to herself.

Her mother charged round the front of the bonnet to her side and motioned at her to wind down the window.

‘I’m not having a baby in my house, get it?’

‘But where else would I go?’

‘I don’t want to be a bloody grandma!’ she yelled, stamping to the front door.

Mira noticed how her mother’s hands trembled as she struggled to put the key in the lock. It was the first time Mira had considered how much stress this would put on her mother and she felt she had been heartless to tell her about her pregnancy.

Too scared to go in the house, Mira rolled up the window and ate her fish and chips and Mars Bar in the car. The hot food had steamed up the glass, where she had finger-traced a stick figure with a big round belly, within which she drew a heart. It had made her smile. Mira was warmed by the food and the little life radiating from her womb. But the heat became scalding.

Her hand jerked back from the potting shed window. The steam from the kettle that she must have clicked on by mistake burnt her wrist. She cradled it. Tears fell onto the back of her hand. She yearned for Barry and ran across the garden into the house.

Before she returned to bed, she found the brown envelope in the dining room and picked out the photograph of the baby-blue rabbit. Tearing it away from the rest of the picture, she curled her fingers around it and climbed the stairs. With it tucked in her palm, she snuggled into Barry, drawing heat from his body until she felt a little less empty inside.