They are identical. Same four shapes, same annotation down the side in the sonographer’s handwriting.
And the only difference between them, after eight and a half years, is that one is creased and worn where somebody held it.
Mine is perfect. I put it in a box in 2017 and I did not take it out again, because I had
four actual children and no reason to look at a picture.
Hers is ruined.
I have thought about that for six months and I still do not know what to do with it, except that it is the most honest object in this entire account.
And the last thing.
On the flight back, on Christmas night, with three of them asleep, Saskia asked me something.
She is the one who notices. She has always been the one who notices.
She said: “Mum. Why did we go in a helicopter?”
And I said something about it being a long way and about it being Christmas and about how it had been an adventure.
