7th March 2009

You were named after that song. Your father wore braces, bright like over-ripe cherries, and we stayed up until 3am looking at each other’s crow’s feet and laughing. When you started growing, he used to joke that I had a full moon stuffed under my clothes. We counted the stretch marks and planned a route to Brighton and back in a Vespa we didn’t own yet. It was white with racing green detail. Fire-fleck white, not ordinary.

When you were ready to come, you ruined the living room carpet with water and the dog had to be locked in the bedroom. He bit the woman downstairs when she came to help, and she kicked him so hard that he limps even now…we never told the RSPCA, but I still won’t talk to her. Your father was late of course; it was your fault for being so quick, though he was just in time to cut through the milky-green cord with his eyes tight shut. Then, for a few minutes before family and well-meaning neighbours, it was just us. We pulled back the curtains and showed you the choking chimneys and miles of rooftops and the terrace garden next door where gladioli’s had just come into bloom. We smelled the top of your head and counted your fingers and toes, twice. We handled you like 1940’s chintzy china, translucent and gold-rimmed. You grabbed my engagement ring finger and left traces of buttery pancakes there for weeks after. I loved you immediately.